ARTHUR II:The Undead Palm Tree

When Mom and Dad settled in to their dream home, they got some big plants to put in it and around it: pine trees to line the boundary between our property and our neighbors’, a garden, blossoming bushes around the front porch, and two indoor trees. My mom has a black thumb, so Dad took over plant-watering duties years ago. It’s been a little ironic, then, that Mom’s garden has flourished and the indoor plants have been slowly and painfully making their way to the great Victorian Dream House in the Sky. The upstairs tree was “Newton” (a fig tree, get it?). Downstairs, with his own place in the bay window, was Arthur Fronds-erelli, a palm tree. His remains have now been removed to the back porch.
One day I called home for advice on my taxes. Dad was home. “We’re getting a new tree to replace Arthur,” he said. “It’s from California. It’s real, but it’s preserved somehow so it won’t die. I’m not sure what it is, but they do something to it…”
“Like plant taxidermy,” I offered.
“Yeah! Plant taxidermy!”
“So it’s not alive, but not dead, and you can’t kill it.”
“Yeah! They’ll send it to us. We have to put it together.”
They got their un-dead taxidermy tree in the mail. After a technical support call to their California supplier (“Where are the holes to stick the branches into?” “You have to take off the burlap wrapping, sir.”), they assembled the tree. His name is Arthur II. Long may he not die!