Plan and Reach

As I neared my neighborhood I made an impromptu stop at what was called a “flower studio,” though clearly it was a run-down building where various wilted roses and daisies sat in oversized buckets waiting for husbands who had been sent to the dog house to stop and purchase them. The elderly owner tried to talk me into buying a dozen mums, even though he had no insight as to why I was standing in his store in the first place. Apparently he was stocked heavily on that particular blooming item, but I was in the market for more of a plant than a flower and I handed the owner a twenty-dollar bill to take with me a potted germanium of some kind.