I’m about to text my husband…

…to ask him if he’s sending me flowers at work this Valentine’s Day. Why? Because the pleasures of displaying my big beautiful bouquet in my office are not matched by the idea of carrying it home on my lap in the car. He sometimes includes lilies in my arrangements, and I’m so sick this week, and so I see myself riding home with my congested nose inhaling lily pollen and I just want to die.

But my husband plans ahead. Flowers-at-the-office may already be in the works. I will just wait and see, and be sweet about whatever happens.

I started getting flowers at work after my divorce and reentry into dating in about 2004. It meant a lot to get flowers at work, regardless of whether it was a couple of dyed carnations in a budget vase, or two dozen long stemmed red roses. I seemed to attract a lot of flowers in those days. In fact, a friend said to her husband, “Why don’t you ever send me flowers at work, like Karen gets?” He said, “Maybe you’d better find out what Karen does, to get all those flowers. Then we’ll see.” And he winked at her.

I laughed for about five minutes when she told me this. And then I said I’d write a book about it. “How To Get Flowers At Work, by Karen Berry.” Maybe, I said, maybe it would be a really short book.

But I DO care.

The reality is, getting flowers at work meant quite a bit to me, especially on Valentine’s Day. I’d made the mistake of getting married on Valentine’s Day, which I have written about before. Valentine’s Day carried so much emotional baggage that I was in danger of having to pay overage fees. So when the flowers started to arrive on Valentine’s Day itself, I found it healing. I had proof. See? I was cared for.

I would be summoned to Reception and there it would be, proof that some man, somewhere, thought I was worthy enough to deserve flowers. I’d prance back to my office, carrying my arrangement, and set it somewhere visible enough that passers by would say, “Oooooh, those are pretty, who are those from?” and the entire world would see that, yes, even though my husband had left me for someone else, leaving me broken, toxic and full of grief, I was once again in the land of the beloved.

The flowers said so.

I’m not saying this was the most emotionally healthy attitude in the world. It seems petty to me in retrospect, petty and pathetic. I’m embarrassed for myself. But it’s where I was at the time. And I understand how important it can be to display that public statement of value and regard. To be honest? It meant everything to me at the time.

As years passed, I got used to flowers on Valentine’s Day. I even got a little picky. One suitor sent my flowers the week before Valentine’s Day, so the flowers were all dead by the time the day itself arrived. You can read about the ensuing debacle in my book, Shopping at the Used Man Store. I’m pretty sure this one wasn’t my fault, but he might see things differently.

Another gentleman suitor sent me an arrangement of pink roses from…Costco. The roses came with these stickpin things you were supposed to insert into the buds, with little plastic faux diamonds. This was too much for me. I didn’t want pink roses with fake diamonds in them, so I left them off. But when I sent a photo to the gentleman in question, I could tell he was puzzled. He’d ordered something with bling.

So the next year, when I received the same exact arrangement from him, again from Costco, I inserted the stickpins into the roses and sent him a photo. He was so pleased to see them there, sparkling away, COSTCO ROSES WITH PLASTIC BLING.

I knew we were probably doomed.

My husband doesn’t just send flowers on Valentine’s Day. He sweeps in the door now and then with a bunch of roses — usually red, but sometimes not — and he trims off the bottoms and puts them in a vase (I have a lot of vases because of all these years of getting flowers) and gives them to me with his crooked smile and hopeful blue eyes. And I just melt. I don’t need the flowers to arrive publicly anymore. I don’t need it affirmed that I am loved.

But if you’re reading this because you’re not sure whether or not to send her flowers at the office?

Do it. Because nothing is more fun than getting flowers at the office.