Inflation and Fall of the U.S. Flower

Financially, America is starting to resemble a middle-aged ex-homecoming queen trying to squeeze back into her old cheerleading skirt for her wedding anniversary, just praying that she won’t bust a seam. She isn’t fooling anyone; things are bad and now it’s just about how you define it.
A recession, as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is a “significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP.” I define it as a period of time when daisies wilt in flower shops before people buy them.
In the month of May, inflation raised at a rate of .8%. That is the biggest monthly leap since 1981. Over the last three months the president gave $77.9 billion to (get this) normal people. Regulars in my restaurant are sharing $10 salads and drinking tap water.
National unemployment has been rising for the past seven months leaving us at a four year high of 5.7% California is currently at a 12 year high of 7.3% unemployment because of the gaping wound on the side of the housing/real-estate/construction beast. In the last two months my work has fired 7 servers.
Record stores are closing. Outlets like Ross and Marshal’s are reporting huge sales because people are not buying what they really want, just what they need. Socioeconomically, we are about a month away from drawing an eyeliner seam down the back of America’s legs and calling them a healthy economy.
In the years when people still bought things and hand-to-hand CD sales still had an impact on a band’s relevance, my band spent a lot of time standing in front of hardcore shows on the Sunset Strip. My hands usually full with stacks of hot Kinko’s flyers and CDs, I would wait until the shows let out into the streets, spewing bodies like a broken hydrant. Desperately we would compete with the flashing freakshow of the strip for a moment of attention. It was hard and frustrating then. I can’t imagine what it would be like now.
Some of our biggest competitors were a small group of Spanish speaking ladies carrying bundles of fresh flowers for five dollars apiece. They could burn through a bundle in about three clubs.
It was impressive to say the least.
I now work waiting tables in a little restaurant on Sunset Strip, about a mile east from where I used to hawk CDs. I have come to know one of these flower ladies, Anna, relatively well. She is patient and kind, placating my shoddy Spanglish. Anna tells me we are in a recession, not because of the GDP, but because of the flowers.
Sunset is a silly selfish pleasure for most people; A tourist destination for burnt out, sobered up butt rockers with bad tattoos and no coffee shops to go to. Flowers are things of temporary luxury, the impact of which only lasts a few days.
Flower wholesalers have been cutting staff due to a rapid decline in demand. Anna who has been in the business since I was 4 (she works at a flower shop in Culver City five days a week) used to spend Tuesday through Saturday nights from eight to three in the morning trolling the strip empting bundle after bundle of roses, now can hardly get through one a night.
Shipping of flowers by air cargo is down in some places 17% from this time last year. Anna has started scaling back her time in front of rock clubs and spends more time in restaurant patios.
“There is no one here anymore,” Anna tells me. “The money is bad, the people are cheap, and most of the other girls don’t want to try anymore.”
We have a game; I see her walking up to our patio at about a block’s distance I move to one of my tables, usually an affluent tourist couple looking for a chunk of 1989 rock nostalgia or at least a photo of the two of them wearing Guns and Roses shirts in front of the Whiskey. I bring up the topic of chivalry to the lady and ask her if she can remember the last time she met a true gentleman. At this point Anna is usually behind me. I then give a look to the prospective gentleman letting him know that this is all a set up for his benefit. I then turn to Anna, wink, point and watch her go in for the kill.
We can usually go through at least a half a bundle this way, but lately, gentlemen are hard to find. Anna sold a whole bundle last Wednesday to one guy for half of what she get selling them by flower. Chivalry is now more dead than ever and that is how Anna and I define a recession.