Okay, so I think the plant that did the best was Esther, the espresso drinker. She was a little jittery, but otherwise healthy. To be fair, though, I did let the espresso cool down to room temperature before feeding her.

What surprised me was that Victor, the vodka drinker, was pretty healthy by the end. His leaves weren't really all that droopy.

Erik, the one consuming energy drink, didn't grow wings like all the commercials promise, but he did grow a flower.

Wendy, the wine drinker, got pretty smelly. Not only that, but a lot of mold started growing in her soil, which made me a little nervous. I'm not sure it was really worth infecting our entire office with Legionnaire's Disease for a Funny Pages article.

Carl, the cola drinker, was closest to dying, and was the stinkiest of the bunch. For this last photo shoot, I had to Lysol the heck out of the guy before I could even get close enough to take a photo without gagging.

Incidentally, people were wondering if, like, the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Plants came after us. Well, they didn't. Partly because the SPCP doesn't exist. And partly because, let's face it, people generally only care about things that are cute and fuzzy. I mean, when was the last time you heard of animal rights activists rescuing cockroaches?

However, I did feel really bad for the plant I used in this scene:

To do this shot, I needed a plant I could uproot. And so I went to my local florist and found the cheapest potted plant they had. He was like a distant cousin of that little Christmas tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas special. The shopkeeper seemed ecstatic that I was buying his tiny little potted plant from him, and he game me all sorts of care instructions and even watered the little guy before handing him over. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was going to uproot the thing.

Of course, once I was done, I just threw it in the trash. I'm not that sentimental.

So, to recap, what have we learned here?

First, if you're running a humor section and you're trying to get sponsorships for your features, you'll find that most companies aren't really keen on the idea of an article that's all about their products killing something.

Second, if you're looking to drink yourself to death⁽¹⁾, wine may be faster, but it will give you a really bad case of mold.

Third, if you're going to conduct experiments that smell worse than a college frat house on a Sunday morning, wear a helmet.