There's a small carnation sitting in a glass next to the cash register at my store. An associate brought it in the other day after a memorial service.
Yesterday a customer saw it.
"Oooooh...who gave you a carnation?" she asked me.
"Nobody," I said. "It's not mine."
"Oh come on, you can tell me," she said. "Don't be shy."
It's not a matter of shyness. It's a fact. I don't have a photographic memory of everything that's happened in my life, but I'm pretty sure nobody's ever given me flowers. And I'm OK with that. I probably wouldn't turn down flowers, unless they were from somebody whom I don't want to mislead, but there are many other ways for a woman to win me over.
But that's beside the point. This woman continues to argue with me, insisting that somebody gave it to me. I can't believe this is happening to me. I guess this is the price I pay for having the misfortune of being the closest person to the flower -- someone thinks I'm a contestant on The Bachelorette.
Finally, I come up with an exit strategy.
"Did you know that everything on that rack behind you is on sale for $1?" I ask her.
"Really? I'll go check it out," she says.
Then I run back into my office to work on invoices. Invoices are mundane and tedious, but they are more fun than arguing with someone you don't know about flowers.
No comments:
Post a Comment