I'm a Cactus

Today I turned into a cactus. I am slowly adjusting to life in this newfound green and prickly vessel. Food just doesn't taste the same now that I don't have taste-buds or a tongue. Also, I can't hug my friends anymore because whenever I do, they immediately leave my embrace, running, screaming about how they need to find a hospital post-haste because about a thousand of my needles are stuck in them. That's such a hyperbole. Also, I don't understand how they can use a word like "post-haste" in an emergency, because afterwards, they always pause to make sure they used the word correctly. Then, once they remember that they've stolen my needles, they ask me to drive them to the hospital. A highly laughable scenario given that I am now a cactus, and am therefore unable to drive. If you think I'm like that cactus from the Taco Time commercials, you're sorely mistaken. I'm way more cynical. And while they're panicking still (why they haven't left it is a mystery to me), all I can think about is how they've stolen my needles and I need those to act as a defense mechanism. For, since I am a cactus, I am replete with sweet cactus juices that animals in the desert are always trying to drink, but I need those liquids to live! Imagine, what if I were to be transported to a desert, all naked and sans protection? The roadrunners would have a field day and treat me like I was their own personal troff. That's not how it's going to end. My prediction is that I will stay right here in the living room where this metamorphosis happened - unlike Gregor Samsa, I didn't get the luxury of undergoing my hideous transformation in the comfort of my bed - until I become a burden (or nuisance; whichever comes first) on my current roommates, and am then shipped off to either a tacky Southwestern-themed museum in Kansas or I get to grace the living room of a retirement home in New Mexico. Yay. But really, I'd like to get placed out in the desert, or at least I would be if people would stop hugging me and pilfering my quills. Why are people hugging me so much? I'm a cactus! I suppose I could always ask the surgeons at the hospitals if they could give me my needles back after the surgery. But I don't have a tongue. And I'm a cactus.