Corozal, Belize. Dreaded Matapalo vines have appeared in the lime tree! See their tendrils waving about at the top. Birds dropped the seeds, and soon the vines will strangle the entire tree! It's a gruesome thing; we have nothing like it in Michigan. We don't have lime trees either, come to think of it.

I get to feeling creepy, adding this threat to the list of nighttime horrors - the yowling of stray cats, howling of distant dogs, large avocados slamming onto the roof at 3 a.m. The strangler vines are now lurking outside! It's like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Email the house owner in Canada and receive permission to take decisive action. Hire a crew to tear out the vines and prune the tree. Presto! All is well again. If only all such existential threats could be so easily conquered.