& PATIENCE:
Flower arranging might be considered mundane, the act of putting a few flowers with some greenery into a vase in a vaguely pleasing manner, but Patience insisted on bringing a level of competency to it that was perhaps not really desired, but she felt it was required. Flowers had a language, and she ensured that, even if others didn’t know what the bouquet meant, it wasn’t saying the wrong thing. Floriography was a dying art. She’d typed up a small dictionary that clients could purchase and give to their friends to send messages between each other, if they so wanted to. It had been very popular during the Victorian period, back when people still sent flowers. Her current client was insisting that orange lilies were appropriate, despite Patience carefully pointing out that this meant hatred and loathing. People were really quite dense sometimes. Giving up, she jammed the violent lilies into a vase and added begonias for warnings and geranium buds for stupidity and thrust the insulting bouquet away before stomping out of The Black Orchid, barely avoiding someone, who she berated as if they’d already been in conversation. “Is it too much to ask that people listen when you speak? I understand it’s too much to ask for intelligence or humility, but surely they’d all be dead by now if they never learned to listen?”
Mila knew a thing or two about easily being upset by customers. She tried to stay open and friendly at all times, but some people were simply stupid and annoying, and she’d rather not have them in her shop. They managed to set her on edge, and it took quite a bit to do that. So when a blonde almost stormed past her, clearly annoyed with something ( or someone ), she understood. “It’s not too much to ask for at all. At least not when you ask me -- I think it should be common courtesy to at least listen. Whether they understand it or take your advice, that’s their thing. But to listen to somebody else is the least one can do.”