Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

Bombeck’s quip uses domestic common sense to satirize how people choose professionals: we look for small, visible signs of care and competence when we can’t directly judge expertise. Dead office plants become a comic proxy for neglect—if someone can’t keep a hardy fern alive, can they be trusted with a patient? The humor also pokes at patients’ anxiety and the desire for reassurance in clinical settings. Beneath the joke is a broader observation about “signals” and trust: in everyday life we often rely on atmosphere, tidiness, and attentiveness as shorthand for quality, even though such cues may be irrelevant or misleading.