Home Life

I've spent the last few days nursing some sunflowers.

They are nothing more than a naive gesture to begin with, hatched from the recesses of generosity and youth on a rainy day at the supermarket. Why not send them?

Since then they've come the 350 miles from Los Angeles to San Jose in the backseat of a car, and if all goes according to plan, they will travel at least 150 more to Sacramento, stuffed inside a box next to some chocolates.

The whole thing, of course, is just ridiculous. Dried flowers will never survive the anxious trip through the ham-pounding mechanical robot that is the postal service during the holiday season, no matter how many peanuts you throw in the box. Then, when the girl finally gets the box, she finds a handful of destroyed flower petals and thinks 'Oh great, dead flowers that's cheerful,' but of course she can't find them anyway because of all the peanuts, and soon she gets tired of picking through it all, takes the chocolates and throws the entire fucking box out the window.

None of which was able to stop me from trying. But it's been costing me. You see, drying sunflowers is a difficult process. Unlike most flowers, they need to dry with their petals facing up and outward for maximum appeal. You can't just hang the suckers up by their necks, no, it requires torture. I took a couple of clothes pins, clamped them onto their stems to keep them from rolling around, then shoved one right underneath the base of the head of the flower to keep it from moving. So now I've got a mini Guantanamo torture rack on my dining table. Then what? Well then you say "sayonara sucker, have fun getting all the moisture sucked out of you by the air."

It's not a pleasant way to spend my holiday.