Relieved

As Valentine’s Day approaches I’m again reminded of how glad I am to no longer be working in a flower shop! Do you wonder why flower prices are so much higher for Valentine’s Day? Here’s the primary answer, increased overhead. The growers spend many nights in the greenhouses to make sure their roses are perfect, that the electricity doesn’t go out and turn them into rosecicles or that no other business-killing disaster occurs. Such a huge volume of hothouse flowers additionally takes a greater amount of fuel to keep them warm.

Then comes the extra overtime hours paid to employees, though floral industry employees make very little—I started at $3.50 an hour! We would be on our feet all day and into the night for days. One shop always had a line of flower-buying men trailing out the door and into the parking lot. The shop owner always hired a deputy for traffic direction and set up a TV with ski videos to keep the guys occupied while they waited.

Yes, some of it is marketing hype but most florists are local small businesses (though they’re being overwhelmed by the more ordinary supermarket floral departments) and aren’t we always being urged to support such businesses? Valentine’s Day is one of the make-or-break days in the business.

Nevertheless, I’m over celebrating Valentine’s Day. I’ve concluded that it puts unfair pressure on men to spend more money on gifts when they already have Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries and possibly Mother’s Day to keep up with. A friend once remarked regarding Mother’s Day that she’d rather be treated right all year than get a corsage on Mother’s Day.

But if you still want to buy your lady some flowers for Valentine’s Day, the other women I worked with in flower shops and I always agreed that we would prefer a bouquet of mixed flowers over the routine red roses as more creative. But if your lady is a traditionalist you’d better stick with long stem red roses. See what I mean? It’s too demanding.