*Flash Fiction* “The Price of Love”
I guess I’d better buy her one of those dumb things,” I thought as I stood staring at the Florist case filled with Orchids.
The problem was they were expensive and considering who I was taking tgo the Prom – I didn’t see the point.
Valerie Campbell wasn’t my first choice or even my fifth – but all the other chicks had turned me down flat.
Damn… I just couldn’t see plunking down seventeen dollars and ninety-nine cents to make a monosyllabic pimple-faced chick with terminal halitosis happy.
My Old Man, his pipe puffing sweet-smelling clouds of Amphora Red in the air had laughed when he heard I was going to the Prom. “Do you have to wear a “monkey suit” to this Shindig?” he chuckled.
“Yeah.”
“I assume you have bought your date a “corsage,” he said peering over his newspaper.
“Uhhh…no.”
“Better get on it, Son. Ya know it’s expected.”
So there I was at “Luna’s Flowers” struggling to make a decision. Finally, with a sigh, I pulled out a bunch of coins and lint out of my pocket and placed them on the shop counter.
A half an hour later, after a bunch of embarrassing coin counting and lint separation, the shop door chime pinged merrily and I exited bearing my prize in a gold box.
It was a hot day and my car interior was even hotter. And to be honest I forgot about that darn orchid.
Anyway, by the time I got home after spending the afternoon with some friends – my beautiful corsage looked like someone had sat on it.
Taking this as a sign from the Gods – I promptly got on the phone and cancelled my prom date.
Valerie didn’t seem too fazed at me bailing out on her. In fact, she sounded downright relieved.
That night I gave my Mom a slightly wilted orchid as a belated Mother’s Day gift.
Good Ol’ Mom was thrilled, of course.
