I Hate Naked Ladies

Around my neck of the woods at this time of year, a profusion of pale pink flowers start to bloom. They come up along roadsides, around trees, near fences, as well as in peoples' yards. These flowers grow on brown stalks and have no leaves to adorn them. I suppose that the astonishing lack of leaves or any hint of green on them is what gave them the name, Naked Ladies, although they are also called belladonna lilies.

For some reason, I HATE this flower. I really don't hate that many things--but these flowers, flourishing and reproducing themselves every year in larger quantities, just give me such an annoyed reaction. Now, if they were on green stalks and had some sort of leaf, I think I would like them very much. But those brown spindly stems make them seem like an abomination. Or if they grew in a green field where their stems were hidden, even that would be acceptable. But I live in a region where the summers are extremely dry (no rain has fallen here for months). These naked ladies seem to flourish in dry plots where not much else is growing--so they stand out, showing their nakedness all alone.

I wonder if part of my distaste for this flower is because of the time of year when it blooms. They signal the approaching end of summer and the time when we rev up to back-to-school mode. No more lollygagging in the heat of long summer days, no more illusions of whiling away on a lawn chair, slightly bored, but in a way that is relaxing and renewing.

Okay, so I never really lollygag or while away any day or take much time to sit in lawn chairs--and I'm pretty much never bored. But the POSSIBILITY of those things seems to end when those infernal naked ladies start popping up everywhere.

I may never understand my hatred for these flowers, but at the same time, they don't stay in bloom for very long. They'll be shriveled up and lose their petals before I know it. And even though I hate them, that thought makes me a little melancholy.