trying to chill

We’re a bit beyond Valentine’s Day which I hope you all, yes you, all 4 and haife of you who read this enjoyed. But whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Mom or Grandma’s birthday, a special day for the wife or girlfriend, you think about getting flowers delivered, right? RIGHT?! Good. Well, there’s only a few things to consider when buying flowers. 1.) Will it be delivered the day I request? 2.) Will it look pretty? 3.) Will it not break my wallet? Seems pretty damn simple, well, you’d think so anyway. Previous to this last year I had always used 1800flowers.com, who I’m pretty sure uses local florists for delivery. This is pretty common and a well accepted method of flower delivery. That is until they delivered flowers on the wrong day (way to blow that). I began to shop elsewhere. In December I decided to try out ProFlowers.com due to the overwhelming marketing they’d been doing. How bad can they be? 1800flowers.com failed on the first check but the second and third conditions were always met, so it’s not too much to expect ProFlowers to get them right. They had the calendar to select the day I needed, the pictures looked great (durr I guess), and the price was nice. Mom got her flowers, thanked me, thought they were pretty though she told me some weren’t open. Okay, I guess that’s not too bad, right?

I figure I’ll use them again for Valentine’s Day. Week in advance should be enough, which it was. Crap, it’s on a Saturday this year. They deliver on Saturday! Perfect. They look great (durrr hurr) and the cost is okay! Well, wait, after shipping… well whatever, it’s Valentine’s Day and I can’t hide them anywhere so Saturday delivery it is. Saturday rolls around and I play my little game of secrecy so she may have doubted I was going to get her flowers (we had late dinner plans). I expected an early afternoon delivery. Boy, I guess I just expected too much. What happens when you want to surprise your girlfriend with flowers but are stuck waiting for delivery? Nothing. That’s right, you sit at home waiting because you don’t want to ruin the surprise. You’re stuck. At. Home. I was afraid to even take a walk to check the mail because surely they’d be delivered as soon as we stepped out! I know it’s not a big deal, but I had a nice thing going in my head.

8:45PM. You guessed it—that’s what time they delivered. Who? FedEx. Was it in a box? Yes! You know that Superbowl commercial where the chick gets flowers in a box and it’s all funny to get flowers delivered in a box? That was me! I was beyond myself. Fortunately the girlfriend was upstairs getting ready to go out to our late dinner (yes, 8:45PM) so I had a moment to open the BOX up and set the flowers on the table. Except they weren’t flowers. They were stems. Ugly ass stems. With instructions. I paid a good bit extra for a Saturday delivery to get a late delivery full of unbloomed flowers that I had to arrange myself. Obviously I didn’t have time to make it look nice so it was just a red vase (that was fairly nice I admit!), some stems, a cute teddy bear, and some stems. Did I mention they were unarranged stems?

Fortunately Ashton was happy with them and she was understanding of course, but this doesn’t change the fact that this is not the right way to receive flowers. After telling my friends what happened, I heard the same story from them and a “I coulda told you that” warning about not using ProFlowers. Oh well. Here’s an official notice to everyone. ON THE BRIGHT SIDE they had very understanding customer service and refunded me what I requested. If you’re just looking to buy and arrange your own flowers, ProFlowers is for you, otherwise, don’t be fooled by their marketing and their web site—they are NOT the right choice for a special delivery.