One South African woman got so much pleasure out of fooling her husband that she did it from the grave — for years.
Before my mum passed away, she gave my dad strict instructions to water the plants in the bathroom. He’s been religiously watering them & keeping them alive. They look so amazing he decided to take them to his new home, only to discover they are plastic! Can hear my mum chuckling pic.twitter.com/N87giD5zKT
— Antonia Nicol (@Flaminhaystack) January 16, 2018
Just before Phedre Fitton died of ovarian cancer four years ago, she gave her husband one final, detailed instruction: to water her plants in the bathroom.
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Intent on fulfilling his late wife’s request, Nigel Fitton dutifully watered the plants in the home they shared in Johannesburg for years.
Antonia Nicol, the couple’s daughter, said Nigel was so proud of himself for keeping the plants alive through the years — that is, until he realized his wife had managed to prank him one last time.
Nicol, a firefighter based in London, said that about a year ago she was helping her father move into a retirement home when they discovered the plants he’d been faithfully watering were made of plastic.
“There wasn’t much light in the bathroom, so my mum had replaced the plants with plastic ones. None of us knew,” she told CTVNews Thursday. “We all found it hilarious. Especially my dad who had been so impressed he hadn’t killed them off.”
Nicol was reminded of the moment recently and shared the story on Twitter, where it has since received more than 33,000 retweets and 109,315 likes.
“Can hear my mum chuckling,” she wrote after explaining the funny story.
“She was very funny. Had a cheeky sense of humour for sure,” she wrote in one tweet. “It’s really made us all happy as a family to remember her like this.”
When someone asked where all the water went if soil wasn’t able to absorb it, Nicol said, “My poor dad probably thought the toilet had a permanent leak as there was always water on the floor.”
Nicol said her parents met when they were 16 years old and were together ever since.
“They were best friends. They worked together, travelled together and were never apart,” she wrote.
In the days since sharing the story on social media, Nicol said her father has been embracing all of the attention.
“My dad has just sent a message saying that it’s brought a tear to his eye and he hopes it’s made people happy,” she said.
In fact, he enjoyed reminiscing on the prank so much that he reenacted watering the fake plant for Twitter.
“It’s got our family and friends all chatting about my mum again which is really lovely and it feels like she’s right here with us, laughing along,” Nicol said.
