That was more thoughtful, sensitive and helpful than anyone would know. Thanks. I believe I will now buy a succulent. Mostly because the cats shouldn't fuck with it.
My advice is find a species of Haworthia. They have a few advantages: 1) they're forgiving of overwatering. This is what kills succulents. 2) They flower once or twice a year. their flowers are unremarkable but they send out stalks over the course of weeks that then burst into modest little white blooms. 3) They aren't from the goddamn desert Southwest, which fucking sucks, and made me hate cacti and succulents to the bottom of my goddamn soul because oh my fucking god anything even vaguely related to a mutherfucking prickly pear needs to be incinerated with salt rubbed into its gene pool so that nothing grows again FUCK American cacti.
I can say from experience that growing Cannabis is quite fun. even though I never made it to the point of having something to smoke due to life circumstances, it was fun watching it grow. every week it was noticeably bigger. despite how many issues I kept having, I never completely killed a plant by accident.