Did I mention I’m defending my Mortified series Worst Teen Poet In Boston title on Thursday? Club Oberon in Cambridge; Thursday, August 5 at 8:00pm; tickets are $15 (boo) and you can buy them here (yay). If you happen to go to the show, come say hey and I’ll buy you a (much-needed) drink.
Over on Life As A Human: my long history of falling for Catholic priests — and why it might not be such a bad thing after all.
NTKOG #233: The kind of serious friggin’ hippie who, not content with the radiant beauty of a perfect summer day, tries to plant a little joy with the help of overpriced flora.
I am: a bit trigger-shy about interacting with people on the street, after my foray into motivational poetry canvassing.
I am not: fond of foisting anything on the general populace. Even summer joy by way of a Whole Foods rose bouquet.
The Scene: The major thoroughfare in front of my apartment. This weekend, I was trapped in the apartment by a vicious headcold, and felt a bit insular and grumpy about all the lovely summer joy going on around me. During my funk, though, read through some NTKOG activities suggested to me in December, and found one perfect to combat my mood: “Give a flower to a stranger.”
Simple. Sweet. Summery. How perfect is that?
Lumbered up to the Brighton Whole Foods and picked out a bouquet of a dozen crisp yellow roses. As I stepped outside, immediate saw a middle-aged woman helping her elderly mother up onto the pavement. I reached into the bouquet — imagining myself suave like Clark Gable, presenting a perfect specimen to the happily tittering ladies, then walking away with a grin — and … nothing.
Turns out they package bouquets pretty firmly. Just, like, a heads-up, in case you’re planning on trying this.
After a few minutes’ work unbanding the roses and discarding the plastic wrapper, re-hit the streets, bearing twelve perfect loose roses. In a masterful stroke of timing, it was apparently Official Brighton Cute-Couple Promenade Hour. Within a minute, three couples passed me and I held out roses to them, feeling like a slightly worse-dressed Little Matchstick Girl.
Two rejections, but the third woman took one with just a smile, then promptly buried her nose in it. He bloomed a little bit, watching her, then took her other hand as they walked away.
As I walked back toward my apartment, stopped to offer flowers to everyone I passed. “Flower?” A few thank yous, a few embarrassed people pointedly avoiding my gaze. A fast-walking Asian man took one out of my hand the perfunctory way you’d take a restaurant advertisement then, a few steps later, looked down at the flower in surprise.
Four flowers left, I detoured in the block around my apartment and ran into a cute guy, my age-ish, leaning against his car. Want a flower? I have a girlfriend,” he answered immediately. That’s cool. You can take one for her too.
To my surprise and delight, he actually did.
Later, I waited with the last flower outside of the laundromat where my clothes shook in the final spin cycle. Tipsy Blonde Aviator Shades rejected it; Sox T-shirt blew smoke a little too squarely in my face for it to be an accident.
As I was about to give up and go rescue my clothes, a pretty Pin-Up Hipster wearing bubble-gum pink sunglasses and leading an ice-white teacup poodle walked into my range.
“Want a flower?” I asked. She asked why. “Pretty day, pretty flower,” I shrugged.
She grabbed the rose out of my hand, raised it to her mouth, and gnawed through the stem, a little bit vicious. Let the rest of the stem drop to the sidewalk and planted the flower into her up-do, where it shone against her black hair. “What do you think?” she asked, flashing a huge grin.
Perfect, dude. Just. Just absolutely perfect.
The Verdict: Well if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
When you said she gnawed through the stem, I thought you had given a flower to a crazy person. The reality is much nicer.
Also I LOVE Mortified events (I’ve been to three downtown, but never to one in Cambridge), but I can’t go this Thursday (boo). Have fun and good luck :)
Yeah, gnawed isn’t exactly the right word. It was definitely sexy-vicious, not crazy-vicious.
Bonus points for your verdict being a Kurt Vonnegut quote!
haha, you know it, dude! Also, Vonnegut may not have known it, but when he coined that phrase, he also gave the rest of the world a pretty dang good mid-make-out move! Er, TMI?
Haha, I was also going to commend the Vonnegut quote.
http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=428
DAMN! I thought I invented that! Must have internalized it from the A Softer World!
That said … the fact that I quote A Softer World quoting Vonnegut while making out kind of makes me want to make out with myself. #almosttooawesome #forsomevaluesofawesome
oh, so sweet!
Well… nothing more intelligent comes up to my mind in this moment. But I truly think this was one of the sweetest KOG!
What a sweet idea! I would totally have taken one, but then I’m kind of crazy about flowers and plants, and any time I come across roses in a public garden I steal one and wear it behind my ear. My Mister seems to love it.
Cute! Might even try this one myself.
Well, I’d not have taken one, but I’d have tried to not take it in a “nice thought, but flowers just aren’t me” sort of a way, if you see what I mean?
Not gonna lie, I probably would have thought you were selling them, then been surprised that they were real and not the individually wrapped plastic ones they sell for £1 each outside clubs at 2am.
Awww, I love this one.