Tag Archives: flower

Corsage

Corsage: (n) a small bouquet worn at the waist, on the shoulder, or the wrist of a woman

I, for one, am thoroughly convinced that the only purpose we have as individual human beings is to discover ways to avoid the humiliation that often befalls us as a collective.

I don’t know why life, Mother Nature, creation—well, take your pick—has put together systems supposedly natural, which are so unnatural when put into funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
practice.

I don’t want to get graphic, but just the means by which we dispel our waste through bowel movements, and then trying to uncover a dainty process for not appearing absolutely gross while doing it and finishing up is a good example. Remember the lesson? “Take this flimsy piece of tissue paper in your right hand and reach around into your butt crack and clean yourself but make sure you don’t use too much of it or it will clog the toilet, but just enough that your hands can be used again for interaction with other souls.”

Sometimes I think God used the Earth and human beings more or less as an experiment, or maybe even a practical joke—and that somewhere in the Universe there is a new and improved human race which doesn’t have to deal with—shall we say?—natural humiliations.

This came to mind when I saw the word “corsage.” When I was in high school, I went to a prom and purchased such a flower at our local florist, who provided two long pins along with the arrangement, so that the man (in this case, me) could pin the corsage onto the young girl’s dress when arriving to pick her up for the date.

Is there anything that I just described that seems natural or sensible to you? It especially became horrifying when I walked in the door and realized that my date was bare-shouldered, and the place to pin said corsage was up near her precious bosom, which certainly did not need probing in front of her parents, especially with two sharp objects in my hand.

But it was all part of the fantasy.

The parents were standing by with their cameras, gasping, looking for a Kodak moment. The young lady I was taking to the prom had no more experience on this issue than me, so she stood by praying, lamb-like, pre-slaughter.

Somehow or another, I was able to get the pin stuck through the dress and into a little corner of the stem of the flower, where it somewhat dangled from her dress like low-hanging fruit.

I stepped away, greatly relieved that it was attached and that I was detaching.

Fortunately, as years passed, someone came along, admitting the horror and the potential blood-letting of the moment in adolescence, and invented a corsage with Velcro, which hooks onto the wrist—did you hear me?—the wrist of the girl—and doesn’t require prickly points.

Now isn’t that smart?

Couldn’t we perhaps have skipped a step and gone to something like that to begin with instead of tempting the fates, the gods or the fumbling hands of a teenage boy?

Even though the corsage question seems to be handled, I still break out in a cold sweat every time I see one, frightened that some old person in the crowd will shout, “Hey! Just for old time’s sake, why don’t you pin it on her?”


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Baffle

Baffle: (v) to totally bewilder or perplex.Dictionary B

I like to pretend that certain things baffle me because I believe it grants me permission to avoid learning something–but actually, I am baffled by very little if I am willing to sit down, listen and comprehend.

This leaves only one true situation which baffles me: lying.

I understand that people do it. I have even found myself climbing into the slimy pit of its confines. But upon deeper consideration, I realize that it never works.

Whether you’re caught now, later or never caught in that particular lie, but because you got by with it, you pursue a second or third adventure in which you are caught, it is a pursuit that always ends in failure.

Every day of my life, I remind myself that avoiding the truth is not eliminating it. It merely postpones the revelation, the admission or the punishment of the deed until a later time when the intensity will be greater because I put off the original sentencing.

Because above all else, primary in every human beings thoughts is, “I don’t want you in my business.”

So we foolishly choose lying, thinking it will prevent people from probing our stuff, when actually, it grants them a license later–a search warrant to go through everything.

Because once we are recognized as being a liar, it is assumed that we will never tell the truth again. Even if we repent and take on the purity of the flower, we will always stink like the weed.

So why do we continue to lie? Because we arrogantly have decided that we’re smarter than those around us.

But every smart aleck is eventually revealed to actually be a dumb-ass.

 

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Abutilon

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abutilon: (n.) a herbaceous plant or shrub of the mallow family, native to warm climates and typically bearing showy yellow, red, or mauve flowers.

Have you ever read anything and thought to yourself, “I didn’t get that? ”

So you read it again, and you come to the conclusion that you’re never going to get it.

I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what this plant–the Abutilon– would look like. I have to admit, I got a little stalled by “herbaceous.” I envision a kind of green, thistly thing growing out of the ground with very little purpose, considered by those who possess thumbs which are green, as a weed. But you see, often plants like that have only one survivable tactic–a single aspect that separates them from being a big, green, ugly stem: they sprout a flower.

I remember when I was a kid, I came running into the house with a whole bouquet of dandelions, freshly picked from our yard. My mother took them from my hands, threw them in the trash and said, “Those are weeds. We usually spray and kill them.”

I was devastated. To me they were pretty yellow flowers.

Do you ever wonder what makes us determine what is productive and what is cast aside? Are dandelions worthless because they grow in grass, which we want to be totally green, and they interrupt the spectrum by introducing yellow? And what is the nature of this plant–the Abutilon? I will never think about it EVER again. I KNOW I won’t.

But perhaps in an attempt to apologize for its herbaceous, bush-like nature, it sprouts a flower. That’s nice.

Maybe if everything that was a little bit ugly sprouted a flower, it would have a much better chance for acceptance.

Yet to be honest with you, I return to the fact that the entire definition for this particular plant baffled me from the onset and continues to leave me befuddled.