Valentine's Day

I had to do some grocery shopping today, considering that I'm pretty much out of food that I can eat in my home, so I went to Costco and Safeway. At Costco, the first thing you see when you walk in (besides the TVs) is a gigantic display of assorted flower bouquets. Nothing too exciting, but what surprised me was the sheer number of men pushing around shopping carts with a couple of bouquets in them. At first I thought, "Aw, how sweet, instead of just one dozen assorted random flowers, he's giving her two dozen assorted random flowers". And then I thought, "wait, maybe those aren't two dozen assorted flowers are for two different people, one for his signifigant other, and the other for his mother. That's nice." And then a darker side of me wondered if the other bouquet might not be for his mother at all, but rather for his mistress. But then I thought, who would give a random assortment of flowers for their mistress? But then who else goes shopping at 11am for flowers?
At Safeway, I saw a Valentines display as soon as I walked in as well. Heart shaped chocolate containers and stuffed animals bearing exclamations of emotional attachment and sentimentality. Not too many looking at these things, but I turned the corner and lo and behold, it's a line. But not the line to checkout, but the line for the florist. There was easily two dozen men there, all being serviced by one florist, who was putting together bouquets, attaching baby's breath and helium baloons.
In an empty display case near the frozen foods stood two lonely bouquets of red roses, not the prettiest or most beautifully arranged, but serviceable. One could make up a story about how they had been dropped into the car in the morning and left to wilt or how their heater must have been on too high at work. I mean, if you're going to Safeway for your roses past 6pm, you're probably already in trouble with the missus -- roses, even partially damaged ones are so much better than a random dozen flowers.
On Valentine's Day, it seems like all the men work pretty damn hard. Either that, or the men seen today are all horrific procrastinators, waiting until the very last minute to get things done. I give these guys a pat on the back though, because we all know it's the thought that counts. Flowers require alot of effort, even if they are the Costco variety.
There is one unforgivable sin that I did notice today though, an old man, probably in his mid-60s was at the checkout line behind me with one item. That one item was a Whitman's Sampler box. It wasn't even in good shape -- it was beaten and tattered, as if it had fallen off a high shelf and run over with a shopping cart. All I could think about as the cashier rang me up, is how disappointed the old man's wife was going to be, after being married to the man for decades, to have given birth and raised his children to be receiving a sampler box of Whitman's. There had better be some nostalgia value to the box of chocolates, because she deserves much better than that.