"Seven Kinds of Hooey"

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Flower show makes a nice centerpiece

Every year I go to the Philadelphia International Flower Show. It’s the very least I can do. After all, The Blonde Accountant goes to Phillies games with me, so I try to return the favor by going with her to events that she favors. (For the record, the one event she won’t accompany me to is rasslin’ but if you know her, that is no real surprise.)

Right off the bat, we have a sentence that contains the words "favor" and "favors." That's bad. And then the parenthetical bit is pointless… "Hey, she doesn't like wrestling, but really, if you know her, you'll know she doesn't like wrestling." Well, we don't know her. And you just informed us, in the first part of the sentence, that she doesn't like wrestling. Come on, Morsch!

I usually end up enjoying the flower show for what it is — a flower show. What’s not to like? It’s visually pleasing and smells good (kind of like The Blonde Accountant now that I think about it.)

When you say you enjoy something "for what it is," it usually involves some kind of compromise, like just learning to grin and bear it. Basically, Morsch says, "I enjoy the flower show because it is a flower show. I actually like everything about flower shows." But only "USUALLY" - one assumes there are times when Morsch doesn't have a good time at the flower show, despite the fact that it looks and smells like his wife.

The only problem I ever have at the flower show is that the cement floor of the convention center plays seven kinds of hooey with my knees. But the convention center drinking fountains always seem to offer the coldest water, so that evens the score for me.

I don't know what surprises me more - that a grown man actually uses a drinking fountain, or that the simple act of walking on a cement floor seems to cause him pain.

The other aspect I like about the flower show is that beforehand we usually combine it with a stop at (Shameless Promotion Alert) Reading Terminal Market and then afterwards, we have dinner at (Another Shameless Promotion Alert) Maggiano’s.

The "Shameless Promotion Alert" seems to be an attempt at being funny, but I don't really think that merely mentioning a place you patronize is "Shameless." Does he own the Reading Terminal Market or Maggiano's? I could see it being more of a "shameless plug" then.

It’s not a ballgame, but the flower show makes a nice centerpiece for a trip into the big city. And it’s all wrapped up within a few blocks.

Do his Phillies comments count as unnecessary references to baseball?

I wonder what came first - the painfully lame pun (flower/centerpiece) title of the story, or this last sentence. I'm thinking he thought up the title first, and then wrote this last sentence in a painful attempt to "tie it all together." Regular Outta Leftfield readers will note that MM does this a lot.