giving up the little green ghost

Some time ago, I posted here about my problems with
bugs in the apartment. (I had to pause during the
typing of the previous sentence to swat. Twice.
I'm not making this up.) One of the more appealing
bits of advice I got was to sprinkle borax around
the places where ants et al might be getting into
the apartment. Borax is odorless, and not toxic to
humans or other mammals who might be wandering about
a home. Though the only mammals I expect in my
home are likely to be human, for the forseeable
future. I sprinkled the stuff in front of the
cracks in the wall, the baseboard, and along the
windowsills where I suspected intrusion.

A few days ago, the pot of parsley that used to
grow on my window sill shifted a little bit, when
I closed the blinds. Some of the leaves touched
the borax. A few hours later, I opened the blinds
to find it completely collapsed. The whole plant
drooped over the edge of the pot into the borax,
and surrendered to the inevitable.

I feel rather foolish about the whole thing. I
should *know* salts were bad for plants...I just
didn't have any sense that it was such a severe
contact poison.