“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say. But I am looking at some pretty compelling evidence saying they are, in fact, wrong.”
Burt and Wiley both looked down at the dollar bill sitting on the kitchen table. The flowering branch growing from it was hard to miss.
“I wonder what would happen it we planted it?”
“What do you mean? Grow a dollar tree?”
“Well, if it is a tree. It could be a shrub. Or a bush.”
“Point. So you want to plant this dollar and see what comes up?”
“Sure. It could wind up producing new dollars from the flowers. Like fruit.”
“Money is not fruit, Burt.”
“And it is not a flowering plant either. And yet, here before us, is a flowering dollar.”
Wiley paused and scratched his chin. The dollar had looked like any other last night when he had placed it on his dresser with the rest of the cash in his pocket. Then this morning there was a small branch coming off of it. Out of it. And only this one; none of the other bills had sprouted branches. If this dollar did actually turn into a money tree, or shrub, he found himself wishing it had been the twenty he put on top of the dresser last night that had sprouted instead of one of the singles.
“So, do we just put it in a pot and water it?”
“I suppose so. Until it is big enough to plant outside. No point planting it when someone could accidentally step on it.”
“Or pick up the dollar.”
“That too.”
They left the dollar on the table and drove to the garden center down the road. Twenty minutes later they were back with a large pot and a couple bags of potting soil which they brought into the kitchen.
The dollar had sprouted a second branch while they had been out.
“It seems to be growing pretty quick, don;t you think?”
“What do I know about plants? I guess it could be, but maybe that’s normal for dollar bill trees.”
“It could be a shrub.”
“Right. But maybe it is normal for it.”
“I suppose.”
They proceeded to plant the dollar bill in the pot and watered it. By that afternoon, there were five more branches, each one now looking like its own plant growing out of the pot, and each one sporting dozens of flowers. By the following morning, the plant was eight feet tall and brushing the kitchen ceiling. Several of the flowers had fallen away over the night and small, mottled green fruit now hung from the branches.