"You have surgery to perform this morning."

This from the wife, as we shared a late breakfast in my folks' kitchen, having arrived sometime between 1 and 2am on Christmas Eve morning.

Huh?

She could have been speaking Klingon, because those words made no sense to me at all. And it wasn't just because of the lack of sleep.

She clarified herself. "You have some cutting to do.", her head nodding over her shoulder towards the dining room table.

Ohhh, as I see the huge, gorgeous red amaryllis blooming there.

I need to geld the lily.

We discovered the wife's allergic reaction to these flowers when we brought a plant into our home, quite a few winters ago. Massive headaches, swollen sinuses and puffy eyes. Symptoms like the flu, except without the hope of them fading or going away over time. Got rid of the flower, the symptoms went away, too.

Now, it's the pollen that floats around and causes allergic reactions. The flower itself is harmless (unless, I assume, if the wife touched or ate one). So, one night years ago, when we first encountered my Mom's annual holiday amaryllis, I surreptitiously snuck into the dining room and, with my trusty little Swiss army knife...

snipped off the male genitalia of the offending flower.

And problem solved. Wife's symptoms went away within hours.

And now, we have yet another giant red blossom in the house. But I no longer have to sneak in to castrate my victims. And so, I promptly pulled out my little red knife, and six little snips later, I had six male organs in my hand, leaking their tiny yellow gametes in a futile attempt to pollinate a female.

And into the toilet they went, removed from our little ecosystem.

Problem solved once more.

For a few days, anyway. Until the second blossom opened.