Cross another one off the list, my friends…

That is, that ongoing compilation of occupations that I, Scott Sevener, am never, ever, ever going to be able to fill in my wildest of dreams. Said list is already home to such classics as professional bull rider, cultural anthropologist, and TV / VCR repairman … although there are those late nights where Sally Struthers pleads that this one is still a possibility if I’m willing to set aside only a few hours a week at home during my spare time. Oh, if only there were more time in the day!

But really, I’m ok with it because just as I know that there is an increasingly large list of things that I’m not able to do, the fortunate aspect of the situation is that frankly, I don’t really want to do most of those things, anyways! I mean, while you may never see me flying around in a fighter jet like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, you’ll also never have to worry about seeing me jump up and down on Oprah Winfrey’s couch in front of thirty million Americans because I went absolutely freakin’ crazy almost twenty years later, either. That’s right, folks – also on that list of things that I’ll never be able to do … be Tom Cruise.

And believe me, pre-2005 / Katie Holmes / Scientology / Tom goes utterly insane, that was a pretty tough one to chalk up! Top Gun, Cocktail, Days of Thunder, Jerry McGuire, even the first Mission: Impossible movie – now those were great films. But cinematic excellence before loony toons aside, I digress…

I digress because this week I learned that something quite different from being Tom Cruise would have to be added to the list, and this time it was one that I really thought I had a fighting chance with – the delicate art of making beautiful floral arrangements. While we did learn last fall that my green thumb still needs a little, well common sense, I figured that when it all comes down to it, plants are plants, right?! If I can keep an assortment of shrubberies alive, relatively speaking anyways, then how hard could it be to take a $4.99 bouquet of flowers from the grocery store and put them in a vase with some water in it?

The answer: very, very hard…

Of course, it seems like a simple task – flowers are bought at the store and brought home; vase is determined to be too small for said flowers in their current dimensions; scissors are therefore used to reduce the size of the flowers to make them fit into that vase. The appropriate trimming is completed with ease, flowers go in vase, arrangement amazes girlfriend, who then proceeds to bake me a yummy apple pie seeping with love and gratitude! Mind you, that’s how it was supposed to go down, but instead all that resulted from our little pruning exercise was the handful of stems in mismatched lengths that you see in the picture above … and if you’re still remotely convinced that they look ok, at least from the picture, please feel free to stop by the house and check out the complete final product for yourself … at least for the next week or so, anyways.

Then again, I’ve got to admit that I don’t really feel too bad about this one being on the list – no plans to open up Scott’s Simply Flowers boutique in the near future or anything, and there’s certainly a reason why my garden doesn’t have anything in it that even comes close to resembling any variety of floral life. And I do like flowers myself, at least in small doses anyways – I see no reason why arrangements on birthdays or Valentine’s Day should be limited to the female sex, and those topiaries found around Disney World during the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival each year are certainly something else, but that said, the line for my involvement is pretty much drawn at the cash register – I can sign the slip and hand them off to anyone else able to do the whole put ‘em in the vase rigamoral; just don’t expect me to go making them fabulous by any stretch of the imagination…

So to sum up this week’s column … just like performing open-heart surgery and training Bengal tigers to jump through those flaming hoops at the circus, it looks like this is another one best left to the professionals. And just between you and me, I’m ok with that!