The Rose Caper
A Short Story By:
John Payne
Ralph was an old school workaholic, who also had an entrepreneurial instinct. He was always figuring out ways to earn extra money so he could take his wife Ida and their four children on vacation for two weeks in the summer, and to pay for his children’s extracurricular activities during the school year. There were music lessons, school trips, and sports camps. All of these cost money, and when multiplied by four, it added up. Aside from throwing boxes around for eight hours every night at the United Parcel warehouse, Ralph was moderately skilled, so he would do odd jobs during the day, such as painting, wallpapering, light plumbing and electrical jobs. On weekends and special floral holidays, like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Easter, he would sell flowers.
Ralph drove down to the wholesale flower houses near the wharf before dawn on those days and bought enough flowers to fill up the bed of his old Ranchero. It took him about ninety minutes to purchase the flowers and return home. When he got back from the flower wholesalers, Joey was always up and dressed and waiting for him. Joey was Ralph’s youngest son, and Ralph admired Joey’s energy and ambition. Joey was only eight years old when he first started helping his father with the flowers. He liked to help his dad with this chore and his dad liked giving the little guy a sense of responsibility. He wasn’t like most eight year olds. Joey reminded Ralph a lot of himself when he was young. He wondered if the boy was going to have the same instinct for making money that he did. He hoped so, and if Joey did have that instinct naturally, then Ralph was certainly going to nurture it. Ralph would set up folding tables in his garage, and begin bundling the flowers in groups of five, wrapping them in green tissue paper, and putting a small rubber band around each bundle to hold the paper in place. He showed Joey how to put the rubber bands on the bundles and how to carefully place the bundles into the empty boxes that he got from the grocery market on delivery day. The manager of the market, Mr. Mannaman, always made sure that his best boxes were set aside for Ralph. He liked Ralph and his family. They were loyal customers, and the children were always so well behaved when Ralph’s wife, Ida, brought any of them along on her shopping trips. After dealing all day with other children who ran around and screamed, racing up and down the aisles with grocery carts, while their parents camped out at the sample table, Mr. Mannaman found the Solidas family to be a pleasure to serve. Mr. Mannaman liked to chat with the children. He told them he looked forward to them turning sixteen years old so he could put them to work. Ida laughed and said “You can put them to work now if you like,” but he told her, “Just as soon as they get their working papers Mrs. Solidas.” “Call me Ida,” she said.
Two years passed. Joey was ten now and today was the big day. He was not only going to help his dad bundle the flowers, as he had been doing for the past two years, but Ralph was going to let Joey come up to Roosevelt Boulevard with him to sell the flowers. Roosevelt Boulevard was a twelve lane street in Philadelphia that ran from the end of the Schuylkill Expressway at Ninth and Hunting Park Avenue all the way north out of the city and into Bensalem Township which was the lower end of Bucks county. Ralph liked to say that when Bucks County was named, it was for all the deer that were up there, but today they call it that because of the expensive homes and high taxes. Roosevelt Boulevard, or “The Boulevard”, as Philadelphians call it, is more properly referred to as a street than a highway, even though it has twelve lanes; six northbound, and six southbound. A highway is usually nothing but lanes and metal divider rails, or just divider lines, but The Boulevard has grass covered islands separating it into three lane intervals. There are oblique openings in the islands, allowing drivers to migrate from the outside lanes to the center lanes and back again. In the outermost lane on either side, parking is permitted during certain off hours. There are also trees along The Boulevard, and homes line both sides of the street. Some of the homes are large, stone, single family dwellings; on other blocks there are two story semi-detached homes, and at the far northern end of The Boulevard, there were red brick row homes, which are called townhouses today. For such a massive traffic artery, Roosevelt Boulevard still has a residential feel to it.
Joey was excited. His dad had given him a dollar each time he helped with the bundling and packing the first year, and two dollars the second year; but now he was going to earn five dollars. Even putting half of it in his savings account, which Ralph insisted that all of his children do, Joey would still have two fifty to spend. He was rich. He liked working, and Ralph’s hopes for him were being realized. It was the same way Ralph’s own father cultivated a work ethic in him. “Work hard; keep your nose clean; and save. That’s how you get ahead”, Ralph told Joey. Ralph bought the American Dream lock, stock and barrel.
Ralph took Joey up The Boulevard to Harbison Avenue. The Boulevard sliced through the northeast section of Philadelphia on an angle, as did Harbison Avenue, on a perpendicular angle, forming a large ‘X’ in the Northeast section of Philadelphia. Magee Street cut across the nexus of the intersection of Harbison and The Boulevard. Harbison was six lanes, and Magee four. Ralph liked this location because of the high volume of traffic, and also because on the East side of the Boulevard, there is a twenty-four hour chain store pharmacy. Ralph did not care about the twenty-four hour factor, but he knew that it was also a busy store on Sundays when the masses ended at the nearby church, every hour on the hour. Also, the store had a very large greeting card section, with as much square footage for cards as most dedicated card stores. On the floral holidays Ralph knew that people, especially men, would be making last minute purchases of greeting cards, candy or perfume, and many of them would then purchase a small bouquet of flowers on an impulse. He had other locations along The Boulevard that he also found productive, but this one also afforded him the opportunity to set Joey up on the corner near the edge of the pharmacy parking lot. From his location on the island in the center of The Boulevard at the traffic signal where it intersected with Harbison and Magee Avenues he could watch Joey and work The Boulevard traffic, while Joey served the shoppers from the drug store. Ralph liked that spot because when the cars stopped for the light, if he could make eye contact with the drivers, he would smile while holding a bunch of flowers in each hand, and when they acknowledged him with a nod or a smile, Ralph would hold the flowers up a few inches higher, tilt his head, and raise his eyebrows. It was a gesture that said, “Would you like to buy some flowers”, even behind a closed car window. Of course it didn’t hurt that he also wore a tee shirt that said, “Be a hero, Buy Her Flowers”. ‘Be a Hero’ was on top of the shirt above a picture of a bouquet, and ‘Buy Her Flowers’ was below the picture. Ralph had designed the shirt himself. There was also a two feet square tent sign near the curb that said, ‘Good Deeds’, ‘Three Dollars a Bunch’.
“You got me with the ‘Good Deeds’ sign called a man from a shiny late model Cadillac. I’m on my way to the nursing home. Let me have two bunches”. Ralph stepped over to the vehicle, and the man handed him a ten dollar bill as Ralph handed the man the two bouquets of flowers he was holding. As Ralph reached into his pocket to give the man change, the driver said, “Keep the change, and have a good day buddy”. “Thank You” said Ralph with a big smile; “Drive safely”. As the man drove away, Ralph looked at his ‘Good Deeds’ sign, and was pleased with himself. His marketing strategy worked.
***
“I’ll have one of those bouquets, please”, said a well-dressed woman to Joey.
“Yes, ma’am”, said Joey. “Do you want to pick it out”?
“No, they all look fine. I’ll trust you to pick a good one for me”
Joey liked the respect the lady gave him. It made him feel grown up, and he scanned the table looking for the nicest bouquet he could find.
“Okay. Here you go, ma’am, nice and fresh. No bruises”.
“Do you have change.” the woman asked.
“Yes ma’am”. She handed Joey a five dollar bill, and he took the clip with the ten ones that his father gave him out of his pocket, and peeled two ones off the top, and handed them to the woman. “Thank you ma’am”, Joey said.
“You’re quite welcome young man. Your mother must be very proud; and here, this is for you”. She handed him a quarter. Joey’s eyes widened. “Thank you, ma’am”, he said. “Sweet”, Joey thought to himself. He had not figured on this bit of serendipity. Joey beamed. This was his first sale. This was going to be easy. Maybe he would open a flower store someday. He took the five dollar bill and put it in his other pocket the way his father had shown him. “That way you won’t get mixed up and hand someone a large bill by mistake” his dad said. Ralph set Joey up with a card table, and two dozen bundles of the flowers. He hung a sign from the front edge of Joey’s table that said, ‘Happy Mother’s Day’. And so it went for the next three hours; people pulled into the parking lot, went into the drugstore, came out with small bags; and every so often, one of them approached Joey and purchased one of the small bouquets, until finally, they were all gone.
“That was selling”, Ralph said, that afternoon as he and Joey sat at the kitchen table of their home. “Now it’s time to learn about business”. He handed Joey a pad and pencil.
“How many bouquets of flowers did you sell today”?
“I sold them all, two dozen”, Joey said proudly.
“And how many is two dozen”? Ralph asked.
“Two twelves’ are twenty-four”. Joey said.
“Correct. Write that down”, Ralph said.
Joey wrote the number twenty four on his pad.
“Now”, Ralph asked, “How much did you get for each bundle”?
“Three dollars”, said Joey. Then, he felt slight flush go through him because he didn’t mention that some people gave him tips. He received a quarter here, and an additional ten or fifteen cents there as they paid him, saying, “This is for you”. He told himself he wasn’t really fibbing, because his dad asked him how much he got for each bundle, and the tip wasn’t really for the bundle, so technically he didn’t tell a lie. Ralph didn’t notice the blush on Joey’s face. Joey hated the fact the he blushed. It was an involuntary response that swept over him, and it made his face a bright red, and sometimes he even felt the heat. “Okay”, Ralph said, “Now, write that on your pad, and multiply the two numbers”. Joey wrote a three followed by a dot and two zeroes on the pad, above the twenty-four he had already written; and then he put an ‘x” as a times sign to the left of the twenty-four. It was the way Sister Mary had shown them; then he completed the computation.
“Seventy-two”, he said.
“Very good”, said Ralph. “Now count your money”. Joey counted, “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven”, and on he went counting the rest of the singles, until he got to seventy-two. “Excellent” said Ralph. “Bravo! You did a good job today”.
“Wow! I made seventy-two dollars in just three hours”, Joey exclaimed.
Ralph smiled. “Gross”, he corrected.
“What do you mean gross dad. I think seventy two dollars is pretty good. Don’t you”?
Ralph smiled again. “Gross sales Joey; you made seventy-two dollars in gross sales, or total sales; that’s not our profit, or what we get to keep. We get to keep the net”.
“What’s that”, asked Joey.
“Okay, let’s keep it simple. Those flowers we sold cost me two dollars and fifty cents for each bundle of five. I borrowed that money from our savings, so now I have to pay it back. No matter who you borrow from, even yourself, you always have to pay it back”. Ralph loved using these little ‘moments of truth’ as he called them, to pass along life lessons to his children. “Okay”, Ralph continued, now use your pad and pencil, and subtract two-fifty from three dollars”. Joey said, “I don’t even need the pad for that. The answer is fifty cents”. “That’s right”, Ralph said; “Smart kid. Now, you sold twenty four bouquets right? So multiply fifty cents by twenty four”. Joey used his pad for this computation, and after a brief time, Joey knitted his brow and said, “Twelve dollars”, in a disappointed tone.
“Right,” said Ralph, “So, keeping it simple for now, let’s call that your profit.” Joey seemed a little deflated. “Boy,” he said, “How dumb am I. I thought we made seventy two dollars today. Twelve dollars profit is a big difference. I didn’t understand that before.” Ralph laughed, “Don’t feel bad Joey, the people in Washington still don’t understand it,” his dad said. “Gee, I thought we would make more than that,” Joey said. Ralph saw the light start to flicker in Joey’s entrepreneurial leaning. To buck him up he said, “That’s okay Joey; our business did good today. Remember I was selling too, and I sold four more dozen. Altogether, that’s six dozen, or three times as much. So, multiply three times twelve; our business made thirty-six dollars profit today, in just three hours”. “By the way, here’s the five dollars pay I owe you.” “Our business” Joey thought to himself as he sat up a little straighter. “Dad said, “Our business.” He considered Joey a partner. Joey liked being treated like he was a person of worth, and not just a kid. Then Joey said, “Dad, you took these five dollars you gave me out of our profit pile. Does that mean our business only made thirty-one dollars profit?” “Very good Joey; now you are starting to think like a business man but remember this, I didn’t ‘give’ you anything; you earned it.” Joey smiled. He liked being in business with his dad.
Sister Mary Regina was hands down one of the friendliest nuns in the school. She was one of the younger nuns, and almost always had a smile on her face; except when the children were misbehaving. She called it, ‘getting on her last nerve’. Then her face would get as red as one of the apples that were always sitting on the desk, but that wasn’t very often. After her brief chastisements, she would resume class as pleasant as always. She loved the children, and it showed; and the children loved her in return. It was Friday morning, and Sister Mary was handing out the weekly math quiz. Joey liked math, especially computation. It was more straight-forward than problem solving, which had hidden nuances. He did very well with problem solving, but he always aced computation. After whizzing through the computation section, Joey began to read the first problem:
Mr. Jones was selling apples and oranges. The apples were five for a quarter, and the oranges were four for a quarter. If Mr. Jones sold twenty apples, and twenty oranges, how much money would he have? Joey worked it out on a paper, the way Sister Mary had taught him. Twenty apples, divided by five was four, and four times a quarter was one dollar; then twenty oranges, divided by four, since they were four for a quarter, equaled five, and five times a quarter was a dollar and twenty five cents. One dollar, and one dollar and twenty-five cents equaled two dollars and twenty five cents. As always, Joey finished the test well ahead of most of the class, except for the brain trust of the class. There was Frankie, Buddy and John, and nobody finished tests faster, or with better grades than those guys. As he was sitting quietly waiting for the rest of the class to finish, he began thinking about his and his dad’s flower business. Somewhere in the synapses of his brain, the apples and oranges and flowers crossed paths, and eureka! The light went on. Joey began computing a new math problem.
***
The next morning was Saturday, and Ralph took Joey down to the wharf with him to show him the wholesale house where he bought the flowers. It was a massive warehouse near the river where the big ships docked. Philadelphia was still a very large commercial port, even though the navy yard was relatively inactive compared to its heyday, when it was a hub for warships in need of repair and maintenance. The Schuylkill expressway is pronounced ‘skoo-kul’, but the locals refer to as the ‘Sure Kill’ expressway, because of the number of accidents. As one travelled North on the Schuylkill Expressway, at the southern end, old war ships could be seen docked, or “In mothballs”, as it was termed. Joey could not believe his eyes, “Real battle ships! Cool”, he said, as they drove by.
Once at the wharf, Ralph took Joey into the flower warehouse. He had never seen so many flowers in one place. There was a sea of flowers of all shapes and colors, which were displayed in boxes for store owners, vendors, and buyers of every stripe to inspect and purchase. The warehouse was as long as three football fields, and as wide as two. Joey reflexively smiled. He thought it looked like one giant room full of Trix, the multicolored breakfast cereal. “Holy cow!”, Joey exclaimed. Ralph just smiled. He knew Joey would get a kick out of this place.
Last week, Ralph confined his purchases to roses, lilies and tulips for mother’s day. The weatherman said the forecast for today and tomorrow was to be sunny and mild, in the mid to upper sixties, possibly reaching seventy. It wasn’t any particular holiday; just a lovely spring weekend in Philadelphia. Ralph decided on multicolored spring bouquets for this week. He and Joey walked up and down the aisles looking at the flowers. As they did so, Ralph would tell Joey the names of the different varieties. “Those are Bearded Irises, those, Shasta Daisies, those, Carnations,” he said. “What are these,” he asked Joey. “Roses?” Joey asked. “Right, good boy,” said Ralph. “Here we have Tulips, Lilies, Hyacinths, and Lavender” Ralph said, as he pointed from one pail of flowers to the other. “Over there are the Primrose, the Pansies, Mountain Laurel, and Gladiolas.” Joey was in awe. He never knew there were so many kinds of flowers, and the way his dad pointed to them and rattled off their names impressed him. He knew his dad liked flowers, but he never realized how much he knew about them. Ralph explained how some were called annuals, and that they only lived one season. “When the seed of an annual flower is planted,” he told Joey, “And nurtured with water and fertilizer and sunshine, the flower is born,” Ralph said. “Then, after that flower blooms into the beautiful shapes and colors we see and entertains us for a while, it fades and withers and drops its seeds. Some of those seeds take hold in the soil and the whole cycle begins all over again. Some varieties only bloom once in a season and others keep blooming throughout the season”. As Ralph strolled along with Joey, teaching him about the flowers, he would stop every so often and hand money to a vendor saying, “Three dozen.” or “One dozen,” or “I’ll take these,” as he handed over a box or two of loose selections he had made. Joey watched the give and take between his father and the vendors and studied everything his dad was doing and saying. He was surprised how many people knew his father’s name. “Hey Ralph” one called. “How are you Ralph?” asked another. A third chimed in, “I see you brought your helper today, Ralph.” “This is my son Joey,” Ralph said, with a big smile. “He’s my partner. You’ll be seeing more of him from now on.” The last man they met said, “Hi Joey, it’s nice to meet you. Listen to your dad and you will be a great flower man someday. He knows all there is to know about flowers.” Joey broke into a wide grin, and unconsciously pulled his shoulders back. He liked that his dad was known and respected by all of these flower experts. Ralph pointed to the pushcart he had been loading up since they arrived, and said, “That should do it sport. We better get going. We still have to separate these into bouquets, wrap and band them, and get up The Boulevard to catch the early birds.” “Okay Dad. Thanks for bringing me.” Ralph said, “Well, if we’re going to be partners, you have to learn the business, “Right partner?” “Right,” said Joey. Joey had not told his father about the brainstorm that hit him during math class while waiting for the other kids to finish their quizzes. He wanted it to be a surprise. Ralph was looking over the flowers they had purchased and carefully deciding which five varieties would combine the best to create a bouquet, with the most pleasing color, texture, and fragrance. He had Joey sniff a few flowers to show him how some fragrances complemented each other while others, which were pleasant individually, when combined bordered on being unpleasant. As he chose textures, matched colors and sniffed fragrances, Ralph explained about the color wheel and primary and complementary colors. This was enough for now. Let him absorb and observe little bits at a time, he thought. There would be plenty of mornings in the garage to teach about color schemes like monochromatic, analogous, triadic, split complimentary and so forth. Joey was like a sponge, absorbing everything that his father was telling him. Other kids might be bored with all of this information, but Joey found it intriguing. He also found that he was starting to look at other things differently. He saw people in the supermarket picking fruit and vegetables, and if one had a slight flaw, or wasn’t the size they were looking for they would just toss it back into the pile further damaging the product and possibly making it unsalable. Didn’t these people realize that the owner of this store had to pay for those items, and if he couldn’t sell them, he still had to pay his supplier? That meant the money would come out of his profit. Sometimes he felt like going over and saying something, but he knew his mom would not like that. Joey was changing. “Let’s go sport,” Ralph said. “I want to get that same location we had last week before a pretzel vendor beats us to it.” Soft pretzels were a staple of Philadelphia culture, as were cheese steaks, Tastykakes and the Mummer’s parade. Philadelphians ate them with mustard on them. They were definitely one of Ralph’s weaknesses. He loved them and hoped a vendor was nearby today but not at his spot. Ralph would have to caution Joey not to mention the soft pretzels to his mom. “Those things are just dough balls with no nutritional value” Ida would scold Ralph. “You shouldn’t eat them. They’ll make you fat.”
As they were leaving the garage, Joey took a handful of rubber bands and a small roll of the green wrapping papers they used to wrap the flowers. As he went around the rear of the Ranchero to get to the passenger side, he stuck the wrapping papers into one of the boxes of bouquets near the tailgate. As they approached Harbison and ‘The Boulevard’, Ralph used one of the oblique cut through lanes to migrate from the center lanes to the side lanes. Once there he worked his way across those three lanes to the right hand lane. When he reached Harbison he made a right turn and went about seventy-five yards, then he made a left turn into the drug store parking lot. He drove to the far end of the lot, which was where Harbison and Magee Street merged. The parking lot came to a point. Ralph took the parking spot that was the furthest from the store and right at the corner where he was going to set up Joey’s table. The drug store manager had said he didn’t mind if Ralph parked in the lot and set up his table, as long as he did not take up the parking spots closest to the store, since they were for his customers.
After Ralph got Joey set up with his table, chair, flowers and sign, he handed Joey a metal clip that had ten one dollar bills folded inside. “Here’s your bank,” he said. “Remember what I told you. Put the big bills in your left pocket, and keep them in order.” “I know dad. I got it. Thanks”, said Joey. “Okay,” said Ralph, “Now I’m going to be right over there” he said while pointing to his location, “And remember, if you need me use that police whistle I hung around your neck.” This was a time before cell phones were invented and with the amount of traffic at this three way intersection and Ralph being at least fifty to seventy five yards away, he might not hear Joey if he called for him. Then he finished loading his boxes of flowers onto the hand truck and waited for the light to turn green, so he could go to his station on the interior island at the center lanes of The Boulevard.
While Ralph was busy setting up his table, flowers and sign, Joey was busy putting his plan into action. He began extracting one flower from each bundle of five until he had gathered four flowers to make a new bundle; then he wrapped the four flowers in a piece of the green paper and put a rubber band around them. Joey had worked it out on paper. Five flowers to a bundle times twelve bundles equaled sixty flowers. Multiply that times two, since he had two dozen bundles and he had one hundred and twenty flowers. He then divided one hundred and twenty by four and came out with an answer of thirty. “Thirty bundles,” he thought. “That’s six extra bouquets of flowers at three dollars a bouquet. Six times three equals eighteen. Wow, he thought to himself, “Eighteen dollars!” “Dad is really going to be proud of me. I’ve already figured out a way to make more profit.”
“I’ll take these two,” a man said as he handed Joey a five dollar bill and a single. Joey said, “Yes sir,” as he took the money. Joey tried to act nonchalant as he took the one dollar bills out of his pocket and folded the single around them. He was holding his breath wondering if the man was going to notice that there were only four flowers in the bouquet, instead of five. “These smell great,” the man said, as he turned and walked away with the flowers. “It worked,” Joey thought. People don’t even notice that there are only four flowers in the bouquet. For a split second, he wondered if they would notice if there were only three. “Nah, Better not,” he said to himself, “Better not risk it.” “How’s business?” A man asked who was holding a small bag from the drug store, asked Joey.
“Just starting out,” said Joey, “But, so far so good.”
“Great,” the man said. “I’ll take two,” then he paused,” No, make it three of these.” He handed Joey a ten dollar bill. Joey had not put his five away yet. He took the ten and folded the five around it, then placed it into his left pocket.
“Thanks,” he said as he looked up at the man. The man kept looking at him and he raised his eyebrows as he smiled slightly. Joey just stared back at him for a moment, and then, “Oh!” Joey exclaimed, as he felt the heat rise in his face. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“No problem”, the man replied.
Joey took the ones out of his other pocket, and peeled off a single dollar bill, and gave it to the man saying, “Three bunches equals nine dollars, and you get one dollar change.” The man smiled, “Perfect”, he said. “I wasn’t trying to keep your dollar,” Joey said, as the blush remained on his face.
“I know you weren’t son,” the man said. “But now you can,” he added. “It’s for you,” he said as he handed the dollar back to Joey. “Gee, thanks mister,” said Joey. “You’re welcome and good luck with your business.” Joey smiled, and said “Thanks”.
“How’s it going son,” asked Ralph, as he pushed his hand truck up the curb and over to the rear of the Ranchero. “Pretty good, I sold all but three bunches so far.” “Bouquets Joey, say Bouquets,” Ralph said. “It sounds nicer to the customers.” “Oh, okay,” Joey said. “Well, that’s pretty good,” said Ralph. Let’s pack up. It’s time to go.”
“Don’t you want to wait until we sell these last three bouquets?”
“No. It’s almost two o’clock. All of the masses are over. See? The parking lot is almost empty.”
“I know, but there are still some people going into the store once in a while. I think we could sell them.” “I do too,” said Ralph, “But it might take an hour or two to sell three bunches. It’s not worth the time. Remember, we only make fifty cents for each bouquet. That would be a dollar and fifty cents for two of us for an hour or two. Aside from managing our business by buying the flowers and marketing them and selling them, we also have to manage our time. Standing around for an hour or two to sell three more bouquets isn’t worth it.” Ralph picked up the three remaining bouquets, and put them in a box in the back of the ranchero. “These will last. We can sell them tomorrow,” he said.
“Okay,” said Joey. He would think about what his Dad said later. Right now he was thinking about how proud his Dad was going to be when he told him about the extra profits he made. When they arrived home it was almost three o’clock. Ralph wanted to put everything away and straighten the garage by four, so he could see the last of the college games that were on that day. “Joey, I’ll clean out the truck bed and put the tables and signs away. You can sweep the garage floor.” “Okay Dad, but first I have to go to the bathroom.” “Sure”, said Ralph. While Ralph was cleaning out the bed of the Ranchero, Joey was in the bathroom with the door locked. He was counting his money. He had three tens, six fives and the rest in singles. It was eighty-one dollars in all and that did not count his tips. He made a low whistle sound. “Wow. Nine more dollars than last week and I still have three bouquets left.” “Dad is going to flip,” he whispered to himself. As he returned to the garage, Ralph was sweeping up. “I thought you wanted me to do that,” asked Joey in a questioning manner.
“That’s okay,” said Ralph, “I’m almost done here. Now we will have time to settle up our finances before the late game starts.” Between working the late shift loading trucks and a painting job he was on all week and getting up early this morning to get the flowers at the wharf and then bundling, transporting and selling them, Ralph was beat. He just wanted to be able to settle into his barko, as he called it, and have a cold beer while he watched the game. As they sat at the kitchen table to settle up, Ralph slid Joey the pad and pencil. “Okay Rockefeller run it down for me,” Ralph said smiling.
“Sure,” said Joey, feeling smug. “Well, two dozen bun, I mean bouquets” he said smiling, “Equals twenty-four, but we have three left, so that leaves twenty-one.” He wrote Twenty-one on the pad. Then he put his x for the times sign and put the three, the dot and the two zeroes above it. When he finished the computation, to which he had already known the answer, he said, “Ta-da, sixty three!”
“Very good” said Ralph, smiling. “Now, how does it go? Oh, yeah, Show Me the Money!” Ralph said imitating Cuba Gooding, Jr. in one of his movie roles. Joey laughed. His dad made him laugh a lot. The big moment was here. “Ten, twenty, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty, fifty-five, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three,” at this point Joey waved the rest of the stack of ones that was still in his hand, and said, “and these make eighty-one”! Ralph stared, not knowing what to make of what he was seeing. “What is this”, he asked? “Where did you get that extra money”? “Is that your tips”? Joey blushed. He never told Ralph about the tips. “No”, Joey said. How did his father know about the tips, Joey wondered? Ralph saw that Joey was blushing, and wondered what was wrong. “Joey! What is this money? Where did you get it”? Ralph’s voice was getting stronger, and his demeanor had changed. Joey became a little nervous. Suddenly, his clever repackaging didn’t seem like such a great idea. “From customers; I got it from customers Dad”. His eyes began to fill up. This wasn’t going the way he planned at all. “What do you mean from customers? You did the math. You should only have sixty-three dollars? What are you doing”? Then Ralph asked, “Did you shortchange customers?” Joey’s eyes sprung wide, and tears began to fall. “No, I didn’t shortchange customers”, he cried. “Well, sort of”, he said. “Sort of”, his father exclaimed! Tell me! “What did you do”, Ralph insisted, becoming a bit more intense. “I changed the bundles”, Joey told him, sobbing. “I changed them from five flowers each to four flowers each. That gave us six extra bundles. I was trying to make more profits for our business.” By now the fatigue had won out over Ralph, and he exploded. “How could you do that” he yelled! “Those customers trust us. They trust me! There are other people selling flowers you know, but these customers come to me. I know many of them by their first names. How could you do this”? Fuming, Ralph got up and left the kitchen. He went in to the living room and dropped into the barko.
Ida had heard the commotion, and came into the kitchen from the laundry room. “What is going on”, she asked Joey? He told her the whole story from the beginning, starting with the math problem at school with the apples and oranges, and his brainstorm; and how he repackaged the flowers, and the extra profits he was trying to make to impress his Dad. His mother held him and told him that everything would be alright. His Dad had a very busy week, and he was very tired. “Give him a little time Joey. He will be fine.” “But he’s right. I messed up. We are supposed to be partners, and I did something without telling him, and now he may lose all of his customers. I’ve ruined his business”, Joey cried. “No Joey”, you made a little mistake, but with good intentions. “We all do it”, Ida purred softly.
“That’s right”, said Ralph.
Startled, they both looked up to see Ralph standing in the doorway. “We all make mistakes; and I want to apologize for mine Joey. I should not have become so upset. You have a wonderful instinct for making money. You had a very clever idea, and you were trying to please me, and build up our business at the same time. I wish you had consulted me first, but that is no excuse for the way I reacted. I’m sorry partner”. Ralph held his hand out to shake, the way he taught Joey that men do. Joey walked over to Ralph, put his arms around his waist, and leaned his head against Ralph’s stomach. “I’m sorry too Dad. I didn’t mean to ruin our business.” “Ruin our business”! “Are you kidding?” Ralph asked rhetorically as he rubbed Joey’s head, tossing his hair. You gave me a great idea. From now on we are going to have two sizes of bundles. The three dollar bundle and the five dollar bundle. More and more people are buying two bundles these days.
“You mean bouquets, don’t you Dad”? Joey teased, as his tension drained. “Right, Bouquets”, Ralph smiled, “Smart kid”. ”Anyway, I think the economy is beginning to loosen up. Folks seem to have more disposable income.” “I don’t understand what disposable income means,” Joey said.
“Don’t feel bad. Neither do the people in Washington”, said Ralph, as he put his arm around Joey’s shoulder and said, “Come on; I’ll explain it to you while we watch the rest of the game.
The End.
