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Yesterday was Flower Day here at the Institute and as such it meant everyone dropped whatever they were doing and went forth to find flowers. It seems a simple task, look for anything that wasn’t green, brown or black and if it had a top that was a different color and was pretty that would be a flower. Some of our staffers couldn’t quite grasp the concept so we had a lot of pictures of things that fit that definition but were not flowers. One of our brighter staffers brought in a picture of a plastic grocery bag snagged on a bush that had colorful writing on it thinking that he had found a flower. Imagine his chagrin when he found out what it really was, the big stupid. Another had caught a shot of a Western Tanager on a branch and was sure that he had the perfect flower picture. Man, I do not know where I find these dummies. I almost gave him a point for being original though, almost.

Then as often happens here at the Institute, our butts were saved by the rarest of events, success. One of our new people, I must learn her name, came in with this. This is what we wanted, a picture that said flowers. Displaying this image on our four story screen, I looked around the massive studio here at the Institute and saw row after row of staffers, dozens of them, sitting up to the highest reaches of our bleachers, who had failed miserably at their task, actually see what a flower truly was, and it brought a small tear to my eye. Not because of their new found enlightenment but because I was saddled with such a bunch of rummies, misfits and dull-normals. No amount of enlightenment is going to make up for these clowns, and to make matters worse, Friday is our quarterly payday. I have to pay them. Fortunately by the time their food, clothing and liquor bills are settled, plus what ever else they bought from the Institute store, I’m only out about 80 bucks cash. The bright spot here is it’s spring. And we have flowers of course.