Once Upon a Time: Flower Shop

Jason and I offered to help out at the flower shop this past weekend since they were extra busy preparing for Valentine’s Day. My great aunt owned a flower shop in Canton when I was a little girl. I had found memories of my visits there especially during homecoming season. There is nothing like that first moment you walk in one of those huge refrigerator like closets that are holding all the delicacies. It is something I will never forget. It is cold, but you are mesmerized from all the beautiful colors and so engulfed by the pleasant aroma you can’t help but ignore the draft, hold your arms, sniff and smile. Now that I think about it after my first walk in to one of those smell goods I never past up the opportunity to open the doors at the grocery stores to take a quick whiff and feel the chill on my face through my adolescences. Needless to say I have been looking forward to this weekend for some time now.

Anyhow, back to this past weekend. We worked on Saturday delivering flowers, (which is something I have never done) Sunday was delivering and helping where help needed to be. As soon as I took my first steps in the front door of the flowers shop on that Saturday morning I was pleasantly surprised with the potent smell of flowers. It was greatness and instantly made me smile. I thought to myself, I must find out where the life size refrigerator is located? They must have one and boy I sure do I hope I get to step inside of it. Yes, I am that juvenile. I made sure to take in a few extra deep breathes to savory the smells. I closed my eyes while doing so and imagined starting every work day off with this pleasantry. I wondered if the employees even notice the sweetness in the air. It brings the true meaning of stop and smell the roses to play. It is easy to get caught up in our everyday lives that we forget to do that. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they didn’t notice it and it certainly didn’t bother me at all when I spoke out in a higher tone after walking in about how wonderful that smell was. Considering I had not even met the majority of these people yet, they probably thought I was little strange, but I couldn’t refrain from vocalizing on the pleasant scent I was taking in.

Saturday, we were given our route, checked off our bouquets of flowers and pots of planted orchids as they were being arranged. I had no idea they do the orders on the morning of. We snuggled them in crates and boxes before loading them up in the car and then we were off. We stopped at some gorgeous homes. Seeing them from afar while driving by in your car and actually walking up to the doorstep and ringing the door bell gives you two completely different experiences. People were friendly and I was having fun. I think Jason was having fun with watching me light up. He has done this many times before and he didn’t really understand why I was so excited about it. The flower shop is owned by family friends of his and that is how we got involved in doing this in the first place. Each delivery was like a new adventure. I had to look at each one before I handed it over. I wanted to see exactly what they were getting. I would have taken pictures, so I could show you, but they had big bows and wrapping on them as well. We went to private hospital rooms, hotels, retirement homes, duplexes and homes that could qualify as mansions.

I will say orchids were the biggest pain and I just didn’t really enjoy delivering those. There were such a variety of deliveries as well, but no matter what size or make they were beautiful and smelt lovely. The flower shop does an amazing job. Doing delivery work is tiresome. I have new respect for any delivery person, but hope they can find the fun in the job as well. I know it is always different when you are doing a job because you want to and it isn’t something you have to do. Either way the encounters that come with delivering can be very humorous. There are the animals, butlers, hospital patients, birthday’s, new parents, newlyweds, ladies in a towel with only one free hand and gosh love em you can’t forget the senior citizens. I was disappointed when they weren’t home. I didn’t get to see their face when the bundle of beauty was being handed over, but guess you can’t win them all. We did two routes on Saturday and I was exhausted.

Sunday, I thought the arrangements were much bigger than Saturdays. I couldn’t believe the size of some of them. We only did one run of deliveries on Sunday and then spent the rest of the day at the shop. I enjoyed this tremendously. At first I was standing in a corner trying to stay out of the way and taking it all in. There were tons and tons of buckets and vases filled with water just waiting to be filled with all sorts of flowers. Even the water just seems to be fresher. There were all kinds of squarely water hoses that I had never seen before. Everyone had a different job and they were all running around like a swarm of bees preparing for the big day. I got to see flowers being “checked” in that was delivered from places like Holland. I helped unload and placed them in to buckets of water. I got to take a peek in the humongous fridge and took a quick smell. I watched the worker’s at the table’s putting flowers together in the arrangements and then observed the ladies that were packaging them up to be delivered. It was amazing to see the routine of everyone and watch it unfold. I sat back in the office and did some mapscoing for the drivers to utilize on Monday while doing the deliveries. I have never touched a mapsco before, so this was fun to learn. Learning is fun, right?!? Since I was fortunate enough to be able to observe things as they happened. I got to see a lot off the workers personalities. Since I love to people watch this was extremely entertaining. The eyes rolling, the jokes being made, the shrug of the shoulders, the sigh of relief, the disgruntle growl, the smile of accomplishment, the scrunch of frustration, the ease of teamwork and most importantly the laughter. This was obviously a high stress time and weekend, so I can see how everyone may have not been at there best.

I may or may not help out next year, either way I will take the experience with me for a lifetime. I think there could certainly be a reality T.V. show made out of working in a flower shop especially with the right people. Jason went to help them with more deliveries on Valentine’s Day. He saved mine for the last stop. =-) So, I do have one of the beautiful arrangements to show you. I just wished I could add the scent with it. I can’t wait to get home and open up my door and get a whiff. I can say for certainty that I will have some flowers in my yard when I get one. You should always take the time to stop and smell the roses.