The arrogance of florists

I don't ask much; when I go into a florist's shop I simply want to buy some flowers.  Possibly even a huge wildly romantic bunch to surprise someone with.  But no, this apparently simple operation has time and again proved fraught with embarrassment.  Generally I am treated like some kind of moral degenerate who has just asked for the latest blow-up doll, or else a special instrument of torture designed for getting horses' hooves out of horses.

In my experience florists seem to be staffed exclusively by late middle- aged ladies with a strong line in grim-faced disapproval.  Since I am just about self-confident enough to believe that it is not just me, I can only conclude one thing: that florists are arrogant. Why?

Perhaps it is neurasthenia.  From years of working in the midst of all this coloured and fragrant glory their delicate nerves have been shot to pieces, their finest instincts reduced to quivering bundles of aesthetic pain.  So when they come to talk with mere customers, their ability to gauge the level of response is gone.  Constantly shutting out the deafening chorus of beauty has left them unable to open again to human contact, just as a clenched fist or jaw locks and cannot be opened.  What I see as a surliness that would do credit to the most magisterial of maître d's, is in fact merely a tragic inability to tune in to the discourse of those who have not experienced the barrage of exquisite suffering florists, by their calling, are forced to undergo. 

But it could be death rather than beauty which has scarred them.  We tend to forget that the blooms which deck the shelves of a florists are mostly cut flowers, doomed to wilt and perish.  They are like mayflies, bred for a brief glory, only to die ineluctably.  Perhaps the rich melange of sweet scents which assault our nostrils when we enter these temples of Flora is in fact the high odour of death and putrefaction.  Is it this which gives florists their tart expressions, as they are forced to breathe in, almost to rub their noses in, the stench of decay?  Are they conscious that they are butchers, and that we as customers are their callous and indifferent paymasters? That the bright display before them is hideously ironic, the flowers spread out like wreaths at their funeral? 

Perhaps not. Perhaps the explanation is simpler than that.  Florists may well love their flowers, the infinite variety in a single species.  Working with them may be a true vocation - called not by a voice but a scent, a tinge on a petal.  Loving and working with flowers they are drawn into the strange, still and silent world of those who came before man, before even the animals.  So with time they come to speak that mysterious prelapsarian speech which Adam addressed the lilies of the field with.  Gradually they find human communication gross in comparison. They shun it where possible; instead, they Say It With Flowers.

It could well be then that these angels ministering at the flower-strewn altars have simply transcended my world with its petty concerns.  In which case next time I am buying a bouquet I shall order a fine and fiery red hot poker flower as well; and give it to the assistant.

(12.8.86)

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