By Chris Cosci

Last week, I went to a florist to pick up a dozen roses. In New York City, you can easily find people selling a dozen roses for $10-20 in little shops, in kiosks, or on street corners. While you may think these vendors are questionable, I can assure you (from experience) that their flowers last just as long as any other flowers.

Unfortunately, when I went to buy roses last week, I wasn't in New York City; I was home on Long Island. So I had to go to an actual florist. Walking into the store, I knew that I was probably going to have to pay a little more than usual. I went to the counter and ordered a dozen roses. The florist opened the display case and removed twelve beautiful roses from the collection. She then brought them into the back where they were accessorized with assorted greens and baby's breath, and wrapped. While the wrapping crew went to work, the cashier returned and rang up the cost. As the words left her lips, my entire body froze in a momentary paralytic state of disbelief: "$52.08."

Not sure I heard her correctly, I repeated the price back to her as a question. Actually, it was more like I stuttered the price back to her: "F-f-fifty-two dollars?" After the initial shock, I started to wonder what was more absurd - that they wanted fifty-two bucks for these flowers, or that she had the nerve to tack on the eight cents.

Despite the fact that it was a beautiful arrangement, I still can't see the justification for the price. They weren't collected from some precious rose mines located in undisclosed, tightly guarded areas of the world. We're talking about flowers, products of nature, taken from the soil and wrapped up in tissue paper. It's like mowing your lawn, collecting the cut grass and selling it in twelve-ounce bags for $50.

Okay, so maybe there is more to producing flowers than just planting a couple of seeds and adding water. However, this doesn't explain why one person can charge $10 for a beautiful arrangement of flowers, and another feels the need to charge $30 for two flowers and some pretty garnishing.

At least my flowers were alive. I say this because there are a few sites on the glorious Internet that actually sell dead flowers. Not dried flowers for decorations - dead flowers. I actually found one site that sold a dozen dead roses for almost $50. Bad enough that florists are charging that amount for fresh flowers, but somebody is actually making the same amount for old, withered flowers.

What is the reasoning behind selling dead flowers? According to the site, you could buy these flowers for revenge or for somebody who treated you horribly. But if there is somebody out there who mistreats you, would you really spend that much money to send that person anything, let alone dead flowers? Thankfully, they don't go any further than flowers. Would there be anything more disturbing than a site that sold something like dead goldfish?

Maybe I should stop before I give any sick entrepreneurs more ideas. As for the florists who sell live flowers, I think I'll go back to avoiding their shops with their overpriced stash of wonder flowers. After all, it's the thought that counts, and the thought of spending five times the amount of money for the same product doesn't work for me. Meanwhile, if I really want to get some of my money back, give me a few more days and I'll have $50 worth of dead roses to sell you.