Love in bloom

My Valentine's Day flowers arrived on Monday, Feb. 17, and the poor things were frozen solid. The drooping buds and frostbitten leaves would have delighted Morticia Addams (well, they delighted me, too, but for sentimental rather than aesthetic reasons). The flowers, which given the globalized floral trade came from Colombia, sat in a cold warehouse over the weekend because the snowed-in delivery trucks couldn't get them delivered in time for the big day itself. The company, realizing that time was of the essence, emailed an abject apology to everyone who had ordered flowers, promised to send a replacement bouquet and even enclosed a discount coupon.
The instruction booklet that came with the flowers said they'd perk up after an hour or so in water. I'm sure that's true in most cases, but in this situation it reminded me strongly of Monty Python's classic Dead Parrot sketch, in which the deceitful shopkeeper (Michael Palin) tries to convince the outraged customer (John Cleese) that the Norwegian blue parrot he just purchased isn't really dead; it's just stunned, "having a kip," or "pining for the fjords."
My Valentine and I speculated whether any couples might have broken up over the tardy delivery. We agreed that a romance with anyone shallow enough to get upset over something so minor probably would not have a long shelf-life, anyway, and better to discover it sooner rather than later.
Update: The company, ProFlowers, was as good as its word -- in fact, better. On Wednesday, Feb. 19, TWO long boxes of flowers arrived, containing three dozen of the most spectacularly beautiful pastel roses that I've ever seen. They were impeccably wrapped and in perfect condition. And best of all, each box also contained a love note from my Valentine -- yes, they're all identical, but that doesn't matter one bit.
Between these roses and the victims of the earlier shipment I was able to salvage, every vase in my home has been deployed.