The Forlornness of Garage Forecourt Flowers

I've got a friend who thinks I'm a snob (though still rather endearing, funny, brilliant etc etc etc...of course).  There are many reasons for this, but the main one is my belief that a garage forecourt bouquet makes just about the worst gift you can give to anybody.  Whose idea was it to shove a few buckets of tired-looking blooms in front of every petrol station in the country?  Obviously somebody who had no faith in the appropriate-gift-selecting ability of the general public.  The depressing thing is, though, that this person seemed to have hit upon an ingenious idea.  Because although I've never witnessed anybody actually buying one of these sorry bouquets, the very fact that they're bloody everywhere must mean some people are.  I guess some people must also quite like receiving them.  People who aren't snobs, that is. Which discounts me and everybody I know (yep, if I deign to associate with you in real life, then you are probably a snob too!)

I think people are generally on dodgy ground with the whole flowers-as-a-gift thing anyway.  They represent, to me anyway, the last bastion of the desperate/thoughtless (delete as applicable).  The only caveat is if the flowers were just being bought to cheer somebody up; for no specific reason, or possibly if you're going round someone's house and they're cooking for you.  Those are the only good examples of flowers-as-a-gift.  They must, in my opinion, never be bought to compensate for meaningful sentiments; because you want to say "sorry" for something, or to express your "deepest sympathy", or to repair an irretrievably broken relationship; so that every time the recipient looks at the flowers they're reminded they just lost someone close, or of the deed you had to say "sorry" for in the first place, and then of the general deep crushing futility of life when just a few days later they have to go in the bin, otherwise they go dry and end up stinking the house out.

OK, so maybe I'm over-stating my case there (!), but there's a reason people buy flowers for dead people at funerals; it's partly because they don't have to think about what they're going to get.  Presents for the living should be thoughtful and personalised to mean anything at all.  And while I am definitely a snob for hating garage forecourt flowers, I wouldn't mind a present bought from a garage per se.  Just one with some thought attached, that's all.