A good day at the flower business. What’s this? It is a picture of the shoe polishing machine in the washroom of the Bank of America building. That’s where the flower shop is located. In the building, not in the washroom. Anyway, how’s that for class, or what passes for it? Can’t have executives about with scuffed shoes, we know how many millions are made on image alone. Don’t be putting your hard cash into any bank before checking for unpolished shoes.
This year, Jo was more organized. He hadn’t slept in a day and a half, but once a year this business really hops. These flower arrangements are not cheap but that means they are also heavy. Jo can put the arrangements together with incredible speed. There are three basic types of delivery.One is in the building. This is extra fun because you have to get to the eleventh floor before any of the elevators will take you anywhere. Many of the businesses are not yet open so the vase gets left outside the door. This is not any kind of risk. When some were mis-delivered, they called and we picked them up.
The second type of delivery is walking distance downtown. Most people would not like the area, because it is not user-friendly. The streets and avenues are reversed and have that ridiculous quandrant addressing scheme. There are four “firsts” downtown, that is first avenue and first street, which can be northeast, northwest, southeast or southwest. This causes nothing but headaches. Add the Florida dodo system of giving each road two or three names and making sure there are very few through roads. One delivery took me an hour because of the wrong address.
The third delivery is get in the car and chase around town at full speed. Those are my favorite as they pay the best. If you drive like JZ, you could probably do twelve of those a day and make big bucks. I did three.
This is the only real chance I have to even see downtown. There is little reason to go there otherwise. One interesting thing I’ve learned is that if I’m wearing a white shirt and a tie, and I’m carrying an armload of flowers, I can get past the security of any building downtown. My guess is that I look like a banker, what with my freshly polished shoes.After things died down in mid-afternoon, I drove over to Quizno’s to see if I could find JZ. Missed him by an hour, which makes sense because his brother-in-law noted that people don’t eat in sandwich shops on Valentine’s Day. This is that Quizno’s with the huge profit margin.
Don’t worry, I’ll remind you of the details. There was another restaurant in the area [for close to thirty years] that had succeeded in pulling strings at city hall, thus preventing any other food establishments from opening. Usually, they would insist there was not enough parking. They were asleep at the switch just once and next thing you know, Quizno’s is slicing both sandwiches and $2,000 (my guess) a day out of their profits. Were they pissed!
Fun and all, the deliveries are a good workout because of the weight of the vase, water and flowers. Especially the big two-dozen jobbies. So on the way home I stopped at Churchill’s. None of the gang was there. This is the first place I played in Miami. Hold on, Kirsten was there. She is the little hottie bartender who is very happily married. A reminder that all the women of my type are long since taken. We talked a lot.
I had just walked seven miles so I came home and straight to sleep. Somehow I was able to resist the temptation to spend the rest of the day in Borders, drinking expensive coffee with no refills. It was a perfect day for being outside, in fact a little cool. I kept thinking I could have done so much more with a bicycle, but Jo would have to be convinced it is safe. I’ve also noticed nobody was riding bikes downtown, but I did see a few chained up here and there. Maybe they [bicycles] scuff your shoes?
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