“Happy Mother’s Day!” Friend 1 beamed, handing over a flat of 18 multi-color pansies.
“Oh hon, they’re lovely!” Mom also beamed, admiring the pretty flowers. “I’ll plant them today! Thank you so much – I know it’s starting to get past their season, did you have a hard time finding these?”
“Oh, they were no trouble….”
THE PREVIOUS DAY
“HELP!” Friend 1 screeched into the phone.
Friend 2 winced, momentarily holding the phone away: “You sound extremely agitated, so I’m assuming this isn’t too serious. Help with what?”
“Mother’s Day is tomorrow, and I’m at the store with all the plants and stuff – ”
“A nursery?”
“I guess; that always sounds like a place to shop for babies, though.”
“That’s `cause you’re a weirdo.”
“Anyway, I’m at the transplanted-plant-place and I looked all over the joint five times with a huge cart hitting everything and everyone every time I turn a corner and I can’t find them anywhere!”
“Can’t find what?”
“Oh sorry, thought I said – pansies!”
“Did you ask anyone there for help?”
“They look busy!”
“They want to make money through actual sales, though.”
“It’s too embarrassing to ask now, they’ve seen me pass by 15 times!”
“All right, do you know what pansies look like?”
“Of course I do!”
“….”
“I looked up pictures online before I came here, OK!”
“Another reason to give thanks for technology.”
“Yes-yes, for the clueless people like me! And I’ve gone around this whole indoor-outdoor set-up 30 times, and I thought I saw them a bunch of times but no, those were petunias, and everywhere I look there’re petunias, and I’m surrounded by petunias, and I don’t need petunias, I need pansies!”
Friend 2 heard a voice in the distance on the other end of the call: “We have some pansies right here, actually.”
“That is one dinky pot that looks like it’s going to fall over and be reabsorbed into the ground at any moment! I need a flat! Which I assume means more than one plant!”
“Oh yeah, we usually carry them in sets of 18, but we’re sold out of ones with pansies right now.”
Friend 2 heard a roar begin to grow and interjected: “Listen, if you want to come by I’ll take you to the nursery where I usually get plants, all right?”
“That – ! Sounds wonderful, thank you, bye.”
An hour later, Friend 1’s car arrived at Friend 2’s house; Friend 2 entered the passenger side and saw Friend 1 was covered in dirt and leaves.
“Did you get in a fight there or something?” Friend 2 asked as they drove away.
“I may have gotten a bit turned around in Shrubs and Baby Trees.”
They arrived at another local nursery and parked at the very back of the lot.
“Good, it’s not too crowded right now,” Friend 2 said as they both exited the car. “And if you just need the one flat then don’t bother with a cart; I’ll carry it while you pay.”
“You don’t know how happy you’ve made me right now.”
As they entered the fringes of the nursery, a busload of horticultural enthusiasts and 40 more cars of panicky last-minute Mother’s Day shoppers arrived and dispersed their contents throughout the property.
Friend 1 tugged on Friend 2’s sleeve: “People! People! I’m gettin’ antsy!”
Friend 2 continued scanning the displays: “Calm down, we won’t be here for that long – excuse me?” An employee with an armful of potting soil bags was stopped. “Do you have flats of pansies here?”
“Oh yeah, they’re down that way,” the employee head-tilted toward the far end of the outside portion of the nursery as a walkie-talkie burst with static: “Are you coming here with that soil or what?! I’ve got 500 customers on a line that’s stretched out to the highway, and I’m never gonna get to go on break today, never!” The employee stress-grinned at Friend 2: “Sorry, I’ve gotta go – ” head-tilted toward the cash register section.
“Understood.”
Friend 1 glared at Friend 2: “While I admire your initiative, a vague direction in a sea of leaves and petals is hardly helpful.”
“It’s better than wandering around out here for the next half-hour with nothing to show for it – come on.”
They followed the winding paths through roses, hydrangeas, and willows, searching for the tell-tale bright colors with faces peeking through the petals.
Spinning around in a circle, Friend 1 wailed “I don’t see them!” before suddenly sitting down on a brick pathway in the middle of the tomato plants.
Friend 2 surveyed the area with narrowed eyes: “Yes, this appears not to be the category of flora we’re looking for.”
“I told you they’re too busy to ask – we got sent the wrong way in a panic!”
Friend 2 grabbed Friend 1’s arm and lifted, walking them back to the main entrance: “So, we’ll just ask someone else for help.”
“NO!” Friend 1 began to run through thorny bushes toward the parking lot. “I won’t be sucked into this horrible snare of displaced Nature any farther! I’m going to buy a cake or a bag of coffee or a spatula instead, anything to get me out of this fake forest biome, Mom’ll understand!”
Friend 2 grabbed the back of Friend 1’s shirt and pointed to a display next to the greenhouse they were passing: “The pansy flats are right there.”
Friend 1 blinked down at the flowers: “Well, whaddya know.”
They scooped up the booty and stood on line for 45 minutes.
“You know,” Friend 2 said while shifting the flat again to a more comfortable position, “this experience wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t waited until the day before Mother’s Day to buy the #1 gift for mothers.”
“Could’ve been worse,” Friend 1 said, staring at the register in the far distance.
“How so?”
“Could’ve been day of.”
Eventually, they reached the counter and the cashier rang them up: “That’ll be $89.03, please.”
“For a flat of $1 flowers?!” Friend 2 nearly dropped said flat.
“No,” the cashier said as Friend 1 shifted to the side, “there’re also all these.” The cashier gestured to the lawn gnomes, bird houses, and garden spinners piled onto the counter.
It was Friend 2’s turn to glare as Friend 1 said, “Hey, they don’t call them impulse buys for nothing.”
“Then you can certainly impulse buy and impulse carry them to the car!”
They dumped everything into Friend 1’s car and slowly entered the stream of traffic exiting the parking lot.
“This is why I never do errands on weekends!” Friend 1 shouted out the window while leaning on the horn. “Mom’d better appreciate the sacrifices I make for her! The ordeals I go through for one lousy plant – !” Friend 2 took Friend 1’s hand off the horn.
“Remind me to not join you next time you need to buy a plant present.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out now,” Friend 1 said through gritted teeth while nearly hitting a cherub statue and several trellises: “EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL!!!”
THE FOLLOWING DAY
Friend 1’s smile at Mom widened.
“No trouble at all.”
