Eventually. Mmmmmm......that's good stuff. Yesss, my, my. OK, why was I mad at Brian?

Oh yeah, right. He shamed our family by missing all of his plant questions. He says plants are lame and unimportant. With the help of this particular bourbon, I'm going to show him how wrong he is.

The bourbon, in case you're wondering, is Basil Hayden's. I discovered it at a restaurant in Kentucky that serves over 100 different bourbons. This particular brand uses a little more rye than normal and is very smooth, mellow, and a little sweet...kinda like me, after I've had some bourbon.

And just to show how mellow and sweet, I've decided to allow Brian to address all of Grumpiana and freely express his feelings about plants without any oversight from me. Here he is.

"Plants suck."

I know I shouldn't have allowed that. He is, after all, still dating his new I-Phone and his hormones have taken control.

Now I could refute Brian's outrageous and totally ignorant statement about the unimportance of plants by pointing out that I make a living from writing about plants, which allows me to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate my disdainful son -- not to mention lavishing him with the latest electronic devices that enable him to circumvent human interaction entirely.

I could present the Big Picture underscoring how plants supply us with grain, chocolate, vegetables, chocolate, fruit, chocolate, nuts, chocolate, tubers, chocolate, mushrooms, chocolate, lumber, chocolate, oil, chocolate, coal, chocolate, oxygen, chocolate, medicine, and, of course, chocolate.

I could proffer the argument that the beauty of plants feeds the soul -- nearly as much as listening on your new I-Phone as some guy you don't know in Finland turns his I-Phone into a harmonica and plays "Amazing Grace" in real-time.

But these arguments, to borrow Brian's parlance, are lame. Son, do you want to know why every man should value plants?

Because plants give us flowers and women love getting flowers. Give women flowers often enough and they'll give you things of even greater value.

Love and affection.

A date on New Year's Eve.

A wedding in the Bahamas that her parents pay for.

Decades of companionship.

Children who eventually tolerate your presence.

Grandchildren you can spoil and leave their parents to deal with it.

Someone who buys your clothes so that people will stop laughing.

Someone to tell you that you really need a shower.

Someone to curl up with when it's cold.

Someone to walk the beach with when it's hot.

Someone to promise to spread your ashes in Niagara Falls.

Someone to spread them in a car-wash instead.

And, lest we forget --

Chocolate.

Good bourbon.