Roses, Anyone?

Max Wu | Feb 14, 2012 6:00 pm | Add a comment | 1748 reads

You are in your office thinking about the romantic dinner planned for later tonight. Or you’ve just posted an ad in the Beijinger classifieds hoping to score a last-minute date, smiling as you imagine handing her or him a bouquet of roses. But what you don’t know is that thousands of others in the city are thinking about the exact same thing and they’ve already snagged all the roses available.

Today, Taobao’s Tmall flower delivery services are no longer available for same-day delivery; the same goes for 360buy.com (aka Jingdong Mall).

No worries, you’re thinking. Surely the florist shops will still have some blooms in stock?

To which we reply: Have you not seen the clown-costumed delivery guys rushing in and out of your office building? If you manage to purchase any roses today, consider yourself very lucky. So now if you're thinking “OMG, what to do?” … you are also in luck. We surveyed our co-workers and came up with some really late last-minute alternatives to fresh flowers:

  • “Get out your scissors and make a paper-cutting of a rose.” (Too two-dimensional. Not recommended.)
  • “Get a tattoo of a rose and show it to your loved one.” (The swelling won’t go down for days. Not recommended at all.)
  • “Hire a clown to show up at your significant other’s office and maybe have him make a rose out of balloons.” (Not recommended for coulrophobes.)
  • “Text your love a bouquet of ASCII roses.” (Nice old-school vibe. Recommended.)
  • “Folding roses out of your recycled paper collection” (Eco-friendly. Recommended.)

And last but not least, for those who were smart enough to order flower-delivery in advance, you might want to surreptitiously check that the bouquet that was sent is actually what you asked for. We’re not just talking about flowers that are not as fresh as they could be. We’ve actually heard tales of complete switcheroos: the colors are wrong, the blossoms are smaller than described, specifically requested flowers are nowhere in sight, or even getting a completely different floral arrangement altogether.

So when your sweetheart calls you to thank you for the lovely flowers, say: “Aw shucks, it’s nothing. By the way, can you upload a photo of you and the flowers to Weibo? I bet you look amazing!”