"Are you in the industry?"

"No," we said, "not any more."

Today Miss M. and I made our way to the Horticulture Club Poinsettia sale. There were poinsettias everywhere.

 

There were five or six different varieties priced $5-8. Not a bad deal at all. I had planned on getting a couple for the Farm, and surprising Daughter C. with one for her office. We were just beginning to decide which three we wanted when Miss M. spotted them.

Whiteflies

We decided to tactfully pull aside one of the students who seemed to be running the show-- and also a bit too talkative, if you know what I mean.

"Yes, I know," he said. "Are you in the industry?" He must have asked us that three or four times. He then entertained us with a quite lengthy discussion of what variety the flies prefer, how many poinsettias the club had begun with-- did you know he watered each one by hand every day?-- his Herculean efforts to control the fly population-- the red varieties look okay, don't you think?-- and so forth. 

"Are you in the industry?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Your boots, the way you were both looking at the plants. I knew you were in the industry."

"Not any more," but she knows enough to know she doesn't want a whitefly infested poinsettia in her room.

"I am but a lowly vegetable farmer," who knows enough to know I have plenty of whiteflies on the Farm, I doesn't need any in my house.

The whole exchange did get Miss M. and I a look at the tomatoes and of the real greenhouse.