He also said the city will move to narrow Washington and Jefferson boulevards downtown.Fort Wayne’s florists spent Sunday, like all Valentine’s Days, putting traditionally romantic flowers into traditionally romantic bouquets.
What variety they didn’t find among the red roses and pink carnations, they found in the attached cards.
“My love is like a cabbage/divided into two/the leaves are for everyone else/my heart is for you,” Vicki Nathalang, of Armstrong Flowers, recited from memory on Sunday. “That was a really good one,” she said, smiling. “I’m not sure if he got it on the Internet or made it up.”
Florists may not be psychologists, pastors or relationship gurus, but once a year, through the small message cards they pair with their flowers, they get a quick peek into other people’s romantic lives. What they find can be funny, sentimental or even frustrating.
“There are some weird creatures out there,” said Tracey Scribner, manager of Canterbury Flowers on West Washington Center. “We had a guy call in with a poem that was all about how great he was. It was all ‘me, me, me.’ And it was like, ‘Well, the flowers are for her.’ ”
Worse, Scriber says, were the men who ordered flowers and refused to include a message of any sort.
“They say, ‘She’ll know who it’s from,’ Scribner said. “But they often don’t. And then we get the calls (asking who they’re from).”
Scribner and her employees say their imaginations are often tested by men who insist that florists come up with the perfect message.
“So I’ll do something like, ‘You complete me,’ or ‘My heart is forever yours,” said one of Scribner’s florists. “There are others, but I’m not going to give away all my secrets.”
Stephanie Byus, a florist at Cottage Flowers, says those who rely on their own creativity can come up with touching or amusing messages. She gets messages in the form of foreign languages, Scripture and well-known poetry. One order this year said simply, “To my king.”
“A lot of guys will call and just make up poems on the phone,” she said as she grouped flowers for delivery. “They don’t even attempt to rhyme.”
Nathalang and the other staffers at Armstrong said they were moved by soldiers all over the world who called in to place orders to their wives, girlfriends and daughters.
“Overseas orders from Iraq and Afghanistan are up this year,” said Armstrong’s Elayne Davis. “I got a call from a soldier first thing on Wednesday, and after I hung up all I wanted to do was sit down and cry.”
