It was five o’clock in the afternoon and he’d been awake for fourteen hours, moving non-stop to get the orders out. It was our second year in business and we’d long ago run out of start-up money, investor’s money and any other kind of money we could scrounge together for the dream of running our own business. He took off his sweaty tuque (it was cold in the warehouse), rubbed his head in exhaustion, and walked over to the playpen where our five month-old daughter had been seconded for hours in a pale pink snowsuit. Gently picking her up, he snuggled her close and accepted a bowl of his mother’s homemade cheesy-bean soup. We’d done it! Valentine’s Day 2008 was soon to be a wrap and we could sit back and celebrate. Until the phone rang. 

He answered the call and his skin lost all colour. The rental truck that had left only a half-hour earlier en route to the depot had caught fire on the highway. The firefighters rushed to the scene to put out the blaze, but every single order was either burned or frozen. He hung up the phone and we all sat in silence, too stunned to react. It felt as if someone had died.

This was supposed to have been our chance. We’d finally landed a fulfillment contract with one of the big players in the on-line flower industry, and we wanted to prove we were up to the task. The previous February, we were hanging on to a retail model that saw our resources shrink by the second, and the products we did manage to sell through an SEO miracle froze on the runway February 13th. The single online review we received showed a picture of a wilted bouquet of flowers with the caption “Charlie Brown Bouquet.” Ouch.

After the deep freeze of 2007, I was ready to give up and cut bait. Our flowers had all frozen when it mattered and our finances were in an abysmal state. Oh, and somewhere in there our precious baby girl made her arrival. My better half, the eternal optimist, and his friend, saw an opportunity: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. They altered our business plan, I went back to work full-time, and we kept going. We wouldn’t freeze anything that year. We found space heaters so that even while transferring the product from the warehouse to the truck, the flowers would maintain an optimum temperature. 

In theory, the idea was great. Who would have thought, that when the last box was loaded up, the heaters unplugged and placed alongside the pallets, anything could go wrong? It took just one bump on the road to dislodge an order of a dozen roses clad in cardboard, which fell onto the still warm heater, which started an inferno of cardboard and roses. 

It had taken ten people eight hours to pack all the Valentine’s orders that day. When the truck was towed back to the warehouse, we stood in the snow and looked at the blackened boxes, and then, somehow we went back into the warehouse, and started all over again.

The Optimist didn’t even finish his soup and was back on the phone. First he called his customer and explained the accident. When they calmed down, he convinced them he could still get the orders out. Next, he called the local growers and asked for anything they had left. Finally, as one does in a family of six kids, he called his siblings. It was utter chaos and pandemonium, but somehow we set up new stations, re-printed the orders (yes, we made lots of mistakes – some people got two dozen roses instead of the usual twelve- you’re welcome random customer from a decade ago!) and re-filled the tape-guns. We made new boxes, cut thousands of stems and somehow, got the orders out again. It was well after midnight when we crawled into bed that night. We were limping towards the finish line, but the orders would make it to their destinations by Valentine's Day.

Things have calmed down a lot since that night. These days, when Valentine’s Day rolls around, I don’t think of the romance or the chocolates, I think about the people in that warehouse that night who put their heads down and stuffed flowers in boxes (without a hope of a pay cheque!) and showed us so much love when we were running on empty. I love you, family!

I thought that we’d experienced the worst of shipping catastrophes, but then the Optimist was exchanging notes about Valentine's 2018 with his longtime friend (stomach bugs, ex-cons + box cutters, border closures etc… the run-of-the-mill exporter blues) and said friend topped it all. While trying to open the sticky back doors of a semi, the metal locking pole stuck. He gave the bar a shove and the handle shot backwards and hit him in the teeth. KNOCKING THEM OUT. We may have shed some blood, sweat and tears over the years to get people their flowers on time, but we’ve never lost a tooth. Yet.

Happy Valentine’s Day, hope you feel the love. xoxo