May 22, 2003

Investing in Death

SUMMER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED! And it did not begin to rain immediately after my last final! I'm so happy, it is unbelievable. Anyway, today, as I was walking to the South Side in the morning, I saw lots of folks wearing graduation gowns and all that other good stuff. At Telegraph, I saw so many flower vendors and the lines forming for parents and family types to buy flowers for their graduating students, it was ridiculous.

I wanted to go up to them, and say, do you realize that by buying all these flowers at such a goddamn expensive price, you are just investing in death?! That's right. I think buying flowers is one of the biggest wastes of money possible. Seriously, why the hell would you spend $40 on dead plants? Why? It makes absolutely no sense. FORTY DOLLARS is a lot of money, dammit! Think about it: forty dollars is a nice meal at a decent restaurant for one or two people, depending on how fat you are. Forty dollars is a week's worth of McDonalds, if you chose to eat it twice a day. Hell, with forty dollars, I could buy a month's worth of mac and cheese. (The fact that I would want to kill myself in a week is entirely besides the point.)

Why do people waste money on flowers? They are not that cool. By the time you buy them, they are already DEAD! That's like buying a car, fully knowing it is going to break in two days, or buying a computer knowing it will blow up in a few uses, or buying a warm corpse and waiting for rigor mortis to set in (if you do that by the way, let me remind you that necrophilia is not cool nor will it ever be cool). So what if the flowers smell nice for like a day—they will inevitably wilt in soon thereafter, leaving you with an empty wallet, and the person with DEAD PLANTS! Hey, let me show you how much you mean to me—let me give you a dead plant. Why limit it to plants? What if I gave you a dead rat for graduation? Same idea, right? Granted it will not smell as nice, but it is the thought that counts, right?

You want some thing that smells pretty, buy some freakin' potpourri—it smells nice, does not cost $40, and will definitely outlast any bouquet that you can buy. And if you are not into that fancy shit, then just buy a Glade® Plugin® or something. You know, plug it in, plug it in. If you are not doing it for the smell, but instead because it looks pretty, then let me tell you—there is a lot of stuff that looks pretty that is not dead. For instance, how about a nice watch, or maybe a brand new car. Those look pretty. They don't die in a day either. And I figure, if you are willing to spend $40 on death, you could spend a few grand on life, right?

Finally, if you are a stupid loser and believe in the sentimental value of flowers, let me assure you—DOLLAR BILLS have their own sentimental value. Do not waste your money foolishly on some crap that the person will throw out in a day. Just give him or her whatever you were going to spend on flowers in cash. I am sure he or she will put it to good use, and you do not deserve that money anyway, for even thinking of buying flowers.

Some of you may think I am heartless for saying what I do. Some of you may disagree with what I have to say. Well, you are wrong and I am right and that is just that. And in the end, I am not the stupid moron spending my money on something that no one wants, needs, or has any use for. Just think about how many bouquets you have bought in the past and how much money you have spent, and where those flowers went after two days. Yup. That's right. Trash! That's your money you just threw in a trash can. Next time you think about buying flowers, do me a favor, pull out two $20 bills from your wallet, and just light them on fire. Save yourself the humiliation of an even more futile action, like investing in death.