My former job site was a few blocks from a vegetarian hospital cafeteria which I often frequented. I happened to be there the day of their annual rose sale fundraiser where lavish floral displays were sold for charity. One of the offerings was an arrangement of one hundred roses. Two men were walking through the area when one said to the other, “Why don’t you get your wife that bouquet of a hundred roses?”

His friend replied, “That would spoil her; then she would come to expect it.”

Their exchange filled me with sadness and the counselor in me wondered if his wife thought she was in a happy marriage. Out of her line of sight and hearing, how sure could she be?

Several years prior, while riding the bus home from work, I was intrigued by a group of three or four passengers — one man, the rest women — who stood in the front of the bus and always checked in on each other’s day. Introvert observer that I am, I enjoyed their exchanges from an anonymous distance. One evening the man got on the bus holding a huge bouquet of  anniversary roses. The women were impressed and one of them lamented, “I wish someone would buy me roses.”

With that, the man pulled a single rose from the bouquet and handed it to her.

In my valued-filled imagination, one of the wives got a better deal than the other.