Baader_Meinhof

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, never heard of it? But I bet you have experienced it.

It means there is something, say a particular model and color of truck you just bought, or a breed of dog, something new to you that you think is unique. And suddenly, everywhere you look you see that item.

It’s the difference between something that is suddenly happening a lot and you just becoming aware of something that has been there all along.

It happened to me at 6:37 on July 17th. I know the date and time because it was my wife’s birthday. I was waiting for the 6:40 bus home from work, as I did every other day. I looked up to the young lady standing on my right, asking if she had the time.

She gave me a sad smile, a flower and walked away.

Puzzled, I looked to the man seated on my left he shrugged his shoulders and told me the time.

I pondered the significance of why she had given it to me. Normally I am not one for flowers, in fact, at that time I didn’t even know what kind of flower it was. I concluded she was probably a little crazy and it was best she had walked away.

Arriving home, I kissed my wife, handed her the flower and enjoyed the lovely birthday dinner she had prepared. I know salmon is her favorite dish, but I had decided Mondays are steak night shortly after we were married, so I enjoyed a big T-bone steak. It was a little overdone to be honest, but it was her birthday so I made no comment. I gave her the card my assistant had picked out before leaving for my weekly poker game.

The following morning as I enjoyed freshly baked muffins, I noticed the single blossom in a bud vase on the table. I wrinkled my nose at the smell of it, but decided to allow her this idiosyncrasy.

My commute was filled with thoughts of that bloom. I tried to find its name online, not realizing just how many flowers exist. As I said, I am not one for flowers. There are apps that will identify plants but you have to have the plant, or at least a picture of it for the app to work. And I had none.

Then suddenly, there it was. A girl, maybe five or six, sitting across the aisle was wearing a blouse with the flower printed on it. I quickly raised my phone but her mother yelled,”What do you think you are doing?”

“Just taking a picture of the kid’s blouse.”

“Pervert!” she shouted at me as she hustled the child off the bus.

As if her insult wasn’t bad enough, I then had to stare down several passengers who had witnessed the exchange. Oh well, at least I had the picture I needed. Or so I thought. Instead all I had was a picture of the old broad’s fat hand.

Walking to my office, I passed a florist shop and decided I had time to pop in and ask, if I was really quick. Stepping in I saw one entire wall was filled with bouquets featuring the little orange flower. I grabbed a bunch and walked over to the saleslady who was talking to another customer.

I waited patiently, tapping out the seconds with my foot. When I reached 90 seconds, I stepped up and said, “Excuse me.”

“Sir, I’m with another customer. I will be with you as soon as I am done helping her.”

“I understand, but I have been waiting and I am on a time limit here. I am an account executive and have customers of my own waiting on me.” It's always good to let people know how important your career and time are.

The other customer tried to butt in, “Sir, she was helping me first.”

With my most gracious smile I assured her, “She’ll get right back to you as soon as we are done. Then I can get to my job and you will have all day to do your shopping.”

The two women exchanged looks, the customer walked away to look at another display and the saleswoman finally gave me all her attention.

“What kind of flower is this?” I asked, holding out the bouquet.

“That bouquet is our Summertime special featuring…” she named a bunch of plants I didn’t recognize and don’t remember because I don’t care for flowers.

“This one!” I pointed at the annoying little blossom, doing my best to keep my anger in check.

“Oh, that is a marigold. They are known for…”

“Never mind, that is all I needed to know,” I said, handing her the offending bunch of plant matter.

“Shall I ring this up for you?”

“What? No! I don’t want to buy anything, I just needed to know what it was.”

As I walked out the door I heard her apologizing to the other customer for my behavior, I swear she referred to me as a pest. Me! A pest! I should have gone back in and set her straight but I had already wasted almost a whole three minutes in her shop. It was now 8:56 and I had a 9 o’clock appointment. Really, some people can screw up your whole day before it even starts.

I was not in a good mood as I exited the elevator and my assistant Janet ambushing me before the doors even closed did not help.

“Your 9 o’clock is here.”

I plastered a smile on my face and stepped around the corner into the reception area. Extending my hand to the woman standing by Janet’s desk, I said, “Mrs. Jankowski, how lovely to meet you.”

She ignored my hand and instead reached for a bouquet of flowers on the desk, the same type I had just seen at the florists.

“Your assistant has been so lovely to me on the phone that I brought her these flowers. But these,” she pulled three marigolds wired into a boutonniere from the vase, “are for you.” She tucked them into the lapel of my suit.

“Shall we step into my office and we can open an account for you.”

“No, sir. I will not be opening an account today. Nor any other day for that matter. I only came in to tell you in person what I have told you every time you have called. LEAVE ME ALONE.”

She mouthed something to Janet as she left and my cow faced assistant only faked a cough to hide a smile.

“Bring me my coffee,” I barked at her as I strode into my office with all the dignity I could muster, tugging at the smelly mass on my lapel. But the mess would not come free, just bits and pieces of dead plant matter came away in my hand. The wire snagged my suit coat and rather than risking further damage to my apparel, I let the boutonniere hang as it was.

The rest of my day was as horrendously bad as the morning. If I were a superstitious man, I would believe I had been cursed. Client after client cancelled their appointments. When I called prospective clients they often hung up on me or swore at me. One woman put her senile father in law on the phone and I had to listen to him rambling for several minutes.

Janet, that totally incompetent sow, bungled my lunch order.

“I’m sorry, but I am not your personal secretary, I am the receptionist and I have fifteen account executives I assist.”

“Your job title doesn’t excuse incompetence,” I told her. Someone in HR once told me I was too “abrupt” but I consider it part of my job to educate my subordinates. No participation trophies here, you screw up, you hear about it.

Janet burst into tears and ran into the ladies room. Well wasn’t that just dandy, I only had 20 minutes left on my lunch and I would have to go to the deli myself. I elbowed my way into the first elevator car with a strange woman and her two kids, all of whom had marigold colored eyes.

“Dammit,” I exploded on discovering one of the brats had pushed the buttons for all the floors. I managed to escape the closing doors and ran for the stairs. Arriving at the deli, out of breath, sweaty and hungry, I was dismayed to see the size of the crowd.

“Excuse me. Pardon me.” I worked my way through the crowd to the now-serving-number ticket machine. “I just need a ticket. Let me through.”

I finally got my hand on a ticket but felt it being pulled away from me. The hand under mine belonged to a woman who enveloped me in her fetid marigold smelling breath. “Excuse me, that is my ticket.” And to my surprise she managed to steal my ticket and slip back into the crowd. Cursing I grabbed the next ticket, number 28, they were calling for number 16.

This just would not do. I stepped up and began placing my order.

“I’m number 16,” a teen aged boy said from behind me, holding up his ticket,

“I’ve already placed my order,” I told him, batting the offending piece of paper aside.

“Sir, do you have your ticket?” the clerk asked me.

“Yes, but I don’t have time to wait. I have a job to get back to.”

“You will have to wait your turn, there are people ahead of you.”

“Get your manager.” There is no use arguing with a minimum wage flunkie, if they won’t help me I go right to the top.

“Jaimie, code 7,” the employee called out and promptly turned his attention to the boy who had pushed in front of me. Before I could admonish him, Jaimie, a short, fat woman was at my side.

“Your employee is rude and needs to be fired.” Jaimie nodded. “People need to understand, I have a job, a career, I don’t have time to stand in lines just because my assistant screwed up my order. Now will you get someone to make my sandwich tout suite?” I asked, giving it the proper French pronunciation.

Jaimie nodded and handed me a marigold. I hadn’t noticed until right that second that we had been walking as I talked and now I was on the outside of her shop. She closed the door in my face.

“Janet!” I raged as I stormed back into my office.

“Janet went home.” I didn’t recognize the voice, or the woman it belonged to.

“Who are you?”

“Cindy. I’m your temp for the afternoon.”

“Well I hope you are better than that lumbering ox Janet.”

“I am quite the specialist in my field,” she smiled at me. “We can’t have you walking around looking like that,” she deftly plucked the boutonniere from my jacket. As if by magic a fresh one appeared in her hand and she tucked into my lapel before I could react.

Without another word she exited the room. She left so fast you would think I smelled bad; maybe it was those stinking flowers. Once again I tried to rid myself of them but she had managed to secure them so well I could not.

The rest of my day was quiet. No calls, no appointments, even when I went to the break room everyone was in their offices or the conference rooms with the doors closed.

Even at the bus stop the waiting passengers made room for me. In fact, I was the only one sitting on the bench while they stood huddled together several feet away. And that was fine by me, I felt the need to distance for some distance.

The bus ride was long and my stomach was complaining loudly about our missed meal. I swore my wife better have dinner on the table when I walked through the door or there would be consequences.

My journey to the table was delayed when I arrived to find a landscaping company had invaded my yard. Over a third of the lawn was dug up and replaced with, of all things, marigolds. If I had had anything in my stomach, it would have been forcefully ejected due to the stench of the flowers.

I ran the obstacle course of the detritus of their work and made it to my front door, only to find it locked and my key not working.

As I pounded on the door, calling to my wife to hurry up and open it, one of the workers approached me and called me by name.

Hunger, heat, and a truly bad day had driven me beyond my usual polite self and I snapped at him, “What?”

“Mr. Smith?”

I pointed to the doormat with “The Smith’s” printed on it. “This is my house, of course I am Mr. Smith.”

He handed me an envelope, “You’ve been served,” and walked off.

Inside the envelope were divorce papers. That is when I saw my wife peeking out through the window. When our eyes met, she stepped back, dropping the curtain into place.

So here I sit again at a bus stop, hot, hungry, mad, the reek of marigold’s filling my nostrils, dead flowers littering the ground around me. I pulled out my phone to check on this flower again and found this:

“Marigolds repel unwanted pests.”

I looked at the boutonniere in my lapel, considered all the marigolds I had been seeing and wondered, was it Baader-Meinhof, or was I considered a pest.