A Loyal Customer

Last week, Shirley's comment on my post about fresh flowers brought back a long-forgotten memory.

In the fall of 2000 Son Tony was a sophomore at an all-boys high school. One Thursday night he came home and told me one of his classmates had asked for a favor the next night.  The classmate was going to a dance at his girlfriend's school.  The girlfriend had a friend that needed an escort.  Would Tony do it?  Being a nice guy, he said yes.

It was Tony's first high school dance, and he was oblivious about the etiquette involved. When I asked him if he'd thought about a corsage for the girl, he just shrugged his shoulders. Of course, since he didn't know his date I knew he had no clue what color her dress was. I didn't want him to show up empty-handed, so I told him I'd take care of getting a corsage the next day while he was at school.

The next morning I went to a nearby grocery store that had a nice floral department. When I asked the clerk if they could make a simple corsage for that night, she said, "Not unless you ordered it ahead of time.  We've got all the orders we can handle". I pleaded with her, but she refused to budge.  I came home, got out the phone book, and started making calls. The first two tries yielded the same result. However, the third call, to a small independent florist, had a more positive result.  They said if I'd accept the flowers they had in stock they could put something together.   Later in the day I picked up a beautiful corsage, accented with translucent ribbon that would coordinate with any color dress.

That florist been my go-to shop ever since.