Sunday, February 16, 2014

Violence is the Flower of Predictability


Dear Wench Whisperer,

    Every Friday I send flowers to my girlfriend at her work. It always makes her happy and she enjoys showing them off to her coworkers. The trouble is, a couple weeks ago my usual florist was on vacation and I was working late every night so I wasn't able to make other arrangements hence, for the first time, my girl did not get a flower delivery on Friday. By Saturday she had gone from sulking about it to angrily accusing me of cheating on her. She keeps asking who I'm f*cking around with and when I tell her I'm not (which is the truth) she just gets angrier. Well, the following Friday she got her usual flowers from me but instead of being thankful she arrived at my door later that evening and threw them on my floor and stomped on them until each one was crushed, all the time cursing me and my "Goddam f*ing roses!" So I missed one week. I'm sorry. Why can't she just understand and get over it? 

    - Not Sure What I Did Wrong

Dear Not Sure,

    This is serious, but it's your own fault. What you did wrong was you went and broke Flower Rule #1: Flowers should always be a surprise. There are many reasons for this rule. Among them; unexpected flowers can give a woman a rush of happiness, a quickening of romantic cheer, a pleasant surprise to inspire in her the will to continue an otherwise banal slog through the futility of pointless existence we call life. Their sudden, sweet-scented appearance can shake her from the doldrums of abysmal contemplation. You might even say they have the power to "make a nothing day seem worthwhile."
    But flowers won't surprise her if she's expecting them and they won't give her that rush of happiness if they don't surprise her. Her appreciation of them will diminish if they become a perfunctory expectation, she'll notice them less and less each time they come but when, inevitably, the day occurs that she doesn't receive the flowers she feels entitled to, she'll notice that. She'll notice it like a bleeding herpes outbreak on your bowsprit. 
    To you, it'll be as simple as "Oh, I worked late and the florist was closed." But to her it won't be simple at all. It will be symptomatic of your lack of concern for her and the fading of your passion. It will bother her no end as she tries to figure out why you don't care anymore. She'll wonder if you're having an affair. Yes, she'll decide, you're definitely having an affair. She'll go thru her previously compiled mental list of all the women you might be cheating with (yes, every girlfriend has such a list, even the good ones who don't realize it). She'll determine the most likely candidate, 'It's that bitch who works in the next cubicle from him! I remember the way that bitch was looking at him!' (you know the one she means: that poor epileptic chick who volunteers at the charity ward on weekends and has mild seizures from time to time during which she stares blankly into space, space which you happened to be occupying once at a company party that your girlfriend was attending with you? Yeah, that one.) Your girlfriend won't believe your denials about it because the absent flowers are all the proof she needs. (you bastard.) And now, what she'll demand that you do and what you will do merely to appease your angry girlfriend by proving that this (oblivious) other woman means nothing to you, is you'll fire her. Yes, you'll have to fire that (blameless) poor epileptic woman who has rent to pay and kittens to feed and whose poor, Protestant parents back in Kansas -who, after decades of praying for their misfit daughter to find a place in the world were finally singing 'She just might make it after all!'- are going to have to hear (because to avoid a lawsuit you'll need a good reason for firing her) the accusations that their precious, special girl has turned into a tramp. And, trust me, that gossip, however baseless, will spread faster than a Lohan's legs thru the whole state of Kansas until her parents are ostracized.
    She'll probably never find another job either, because nobody wants to hire a seizure-prone epileptic cat-hoarder who was terminated from her previous position under suspicion of having shagged a coworker. The morals clause in her volunteer's agreement at the Orphan's Ward will require that she be dismissed from there too. So, to be perfectly accurate, you have condemned a blameless soul to a future of staring hopelessly at her chamber walls, withering away in a purposeless life whilst those precious kittens starve and her formerly steadfast parents are disgraced and disown her, (will alcoholic suicide be somewhere in her bleak future? Of course it will.) And all because you just H-A-A-A-D to make a habit of giving your wench flowers Every. Single. Week... (Arsehole.) Was it worth it? Well, was it? Punk? You disgust me.
    i don't think you can fix this. You're just going to have to get a new girlfriend. Not that you deserve one. Good luck.

-You've been Whispered