what you think is fair.

Dear Rhythm & Blooms,

I had just gotten off work. & maybe I should’ve thought it out a little bit more, but I don’t & can’t control my schedule, that is my bossman's business & if the checksigner says you’re working 9-6 that’s just what you do. Sure, sure, I agree, I could’ve thought it out a little bit more & maybe, who knows, maybe some clerk would’ve shown up, or maybe I would’ve talked myself out of it. Doesn’t really matter, though.

So I had just gotten off work. Yeah, & my girlfriend hadn’t had the besta of dayo's & I know well what I bouquet of flowers can do for the downtrodden heart. Don’t get me wrong, I could’ve just gone home, put on a sweater & slowly traipsed around the neighbourhood, cutting a daffodil here, a daffodil there & spun together some home-made bouquet. I know this; I am actually maybe the isaac mizrahi of cutting down neighbour's flowers & making home bouquets with them. & that's quite often all my skirt needs to help lift 'er spirits but everyone loves a nice, real, purchased bunch of flowers now & then. Sometimes it just means that much more.

So I had just gotten off work, & I decided (being quite careful on the clutch. the car had just gotten out of the shop & I’m a little rough on clutches now & then.) to high-tail it over to the Rhythm & Blooms in the 5th Street Market. I figured someone would still be there & I could pick up a bunch right quick. So, careful on the clutch-style, I pull in & park &, while not quite running, head over to your store with an awkward step more closely resembling skipping than walking. & to my relief the doors are still unlocked, which (is there some adage about how if you don’t lock your doors you can’t be surprised when your neighbours come barging in?), certainly made it seem that everything was kosher. & so, everything being a-ok, I went inside the market &, lo & behold, your flower booth was still up. There was even a couple there already trying to decide which lovely bouquet to pick up. (By pick up I mean purchase.) (By purchase I mean enter into a legal transaction with a legally employed custodian of your enterprise through which after giving over legal american tender to said custodian they would then be handed a bunch of purple violets, or long-stemmed roses.)

& so after just getting off work, & high-tailing (clutch-mindfully) to your Rhythm & Blooms store in the 5th Street Market, I was very excited to see that you where still open. As I had honestly thought that I’d missed the boat on this one, what with my schedule requiring me to work standard business hours & all. So I walk up & start perusing your fine collection of flowers. But it wasn’t long before I (& the other couple, they weren’t stupid.) noticed that there was no said custodian. No clerk at all, no one at the till, no one driving that thing.

So the couple & me, all three, were waiting impatiently for said custodian to return so that we could enter into that ol' time-honored, tested & true, legal transaction action, &... wait for some time we did. We tapped our feet & looked at bouquets we’d already looked over a half-dozen times. The other shops were closed (I know, that should’ve been a clue), we were, seemingly, the only people in the market, certainly the only people that wanted flowers at a quarter after six. Forgive us for working the schedules that we do.

So after just having got off work, & waiting impatiently, I did then quite honestly run upstairs & to the automatic teller machine. I did, requesting no paper reciept for that would have just slowed me down, withdraw ten dollars from my checking account & I did run back downstairs to tell my fine new friends, the couple, my great plan but they’d already left. I did then pick out a bunch of freesia's &, after writing a note in which I waxed desperate, I then left two legal, american, five dollar bills, with the note, on the counter & rushed out of there like someone’d just yelled “fire!”

Or “thief!”



Thank you,
wad

ps. the freesia's were $6.95 & I left two five. I’ll be in tomorrow for my change.