It still may be cold outside...

But it is a tropical delight inside!!

Feast your eyes upon these beauties!

These are my Phalaenopsis Orchids.  I keep them in the window of our upstairs bathroom... and they really seem to like it there. Ü

The first orchid that I got was this white one...



 It was given to me as a gift from some dear friends... who must love me very much!

And as any orchid owner can tell you... you can't have just one... or so I was told and I believe it is true as I am always browsing the orchid isles of the different big box stores.

So, I naively bought two more that I thought were really pretty, but they were dendrobium orchids and I promptly killed one of them, and because they can be rather fickle more so than the phalaenopsis, one of them promptly died. And I have yet to get the other to flower again... not that I have necessarily really tried... but on it's own it has not bloomed again... but to my credit it is still alive!
*Pats on the back*


And I must say they are deffinately not very pretty without their flowers!

Now orchids can also be rather pricey, and I really don't go for pricey... especially if they are going to be so uncooperative as the last one that I killed... that died because it must have been sickly when I bought it... poor thing. But who wants to pay big bucks for a dead dendrobium? Not me!



So then, I had heard of fabled stories of some diligent shoppers getting them for 1/2 the price! And an even more unbelievable tale of someone who paid only 1/3 the price!

You see, after the flowers fade and drop off they are likely to discount them... or so the story goes.

So, not being undone by some other opportunistic orchid shoppers, I kept my eyes peeled looking for the elusive low priced orchids hoping to find them before the other fabled fortune hunters did.



And then one day I discovered the perfect description of what a drastically reduced orchid should look like... there they were, sitting on the sale rack looking well past their prime, flowers spent, broken pots and parched looking... but no price? Hmmm... So, placing them in my cart and nonchalantly guarding my treasure, I casually take them to a register to ask what the discounted price would be... rubbing my hands together briskly and laughing hideously under my breath I thought, 'surely this must be my Lucky Day!' ;-}

So, the clerk scans the broken pot... it comes up... regular price!

What? says I... they must be marked down? Nope, says he... they are not!

So, forlornly I moseyed on back and tucked the parched and broken plants back on the shelf that I had got them from and woefully, casting a wistful look back over my shoulder... mournfully walked away.



But I didn't give up... nope not me! Every time I went back to the store I kept looking for my darlings... that I carefully hid on the bottom shelf... so no other pirates would steal them. And with every new sales clerk I kept price checking on my poor broken parched soul mates... but the answer was always the same... regular price! Rats!

And then one day... the unbelievable happened... they were gone!!

They were no where to be found! I just couldn't believe it!

After all this time of diligently pursuing I was a wee bit ticked off! I was heart broken! As I just knew that I had been foiled by some other phantasmagoric phalaenopsis fictitious fairytale flower pilferer! That shady character of lore had thwarted me!

After stalking my prey for so long I didn't know what to do... I was lost... I would wander aimlessly through the isles looking pathetically for them but alas... they were no more!

 

So life goes on... and spring turned into summer and all the beautiful flowers beckoning me to buy them were a welcome ointment for my crushed dreams.

But still... deep inside there was a inkling of annoyance that I had lost them... incredulously my beauties had been stolen from under my watchful eye! And I bet they didn't pay full price for them! Grrr!



But besides that black spot of disappointment, I happily entertained myself by browsing through all the summer delights, feasting my eyes upon a varied palette of beauty... and dreaming... always dreaming! (Which by the way,. is not to be confused with scheming.. because , well... I don't do that! Heh heh heh)

Then while outside I passed by an out of the way corner and caught a glimpse of a small broken pot! Could it be all this time they were still in my midst? Yes! It was them! And they were all still there! AND the being-neglected-outside was a whole lot better for their complexion than the being neglected inside was!
I susposed that when it got warmer they had been moved outside. My heart leapt for joy!

Once again,  I asked the clerk if he knew aything about the plants on the rack... were they on sale?

He, who just happened to be the department manager, replied that those plants were to be tossed into the dumpster as it was their policy not to sell any plant that was past its prime, and their department motto was... 'if you wouldn't buy it for your mother, we don't sell it" ... at that point I internally gasped and tried to contain my emotion as I off handedly asked... S-s-so... do you think I could buy a plant from that rack? And he just stood there looking at me kinda strange... as if he were pondering what kind of woman I was that would buy a half dead plant for my mother?... But then he spoke and said... Well... I suppose so... show me which one you want. And as I nervously pulled out an orchid I thought I would hear the same dreaded words over again... Oh, that one is regular price... but this time was different he didn't say that!



He proceeded to find a price gun (gun? Is that right? Sounds dangerous... Does it shoot stickers?) and fidgeted with the dials to set a price.

And as he did that, I was babbling about things, somewhat coherently, and wondering what price he would mark on them? Could this be it? Was I going to be the one in the fabled fairy tale that people would talk about around camp fires across the nation?? Could it possibly be me?? (Which, by the way, would in no way make me a fairy... I just thought I'd clarify that.)
So as I continued babbling it also occurred to me that even at half price I wouldn't want to pay that much for some of them. So I was picking through for the better looking of the bunch and thought that perhaps I could possibly be in the oh-so-coveted 1/3 price group...



So as I continued to babble, somewhat coherently, I slipped into the conversation the present state of neglect... the broken pots... no flowers... battered leaves... blah-blah-blah-blah... trying to subliminily affect his price negotiator that is between his ears...then he handed me the pot with the new price sticker firmly attached... and it read... $1.00... Huh??... I stopped in mid sentence... probably mid word even, and dove for the rest of the orchids! I don't remember if I said another word after that, and if I did it probably wasn't coherent anyway.  I even paid for them right then and there as I didn't want someone else, somewhere else doing a price check!



So Glory be to God for blessing me with the prestigious and highly coveted cheapest orchid buyer award!

$1.00 a piece ... Go ahead and beat that!  Woot! Woot!

Ü