Possibly the Tallest Paperwhite Ever

To me December isn't December without a pot of jolly paperwhite bulbs jostling each other as they compete to be the first of their tribe to bloom and fill the house with their weirdly spring-like smell.  But this year's paperwhite  was a bargain- basement one from Trader Joe's, $3.00 for a single bulb in a little white ceramic pot.  I dutifully misted its potting soil every day and kept the pot in our sunniest window.  But the sunny days this past December were few, and the poor paperwhite  slowly raised only a single slender stem, followed eventually by two more equally slender stems.  When the stems began to leaf out, I stood a charlotte beneath the modest foliage, and I continued to mist.

It has now been almost six weeks since I planted the bulb, and the slender stem is still slender but is now almost a yard long.  If Jesse, on his way to drink out of my paint water jar,  knocks the plant away from its propping wall, the long stem droops in an arch and lays its heavy head on the desk.  I no longer prop it up in the mornings, and I lay the charlotte down in sympathy.