Deal Or No Deal?

It's a funny hood I live in. I try to shop local but shopkeepers don't seem to want my business.

I keep trying to buy fish paraphernalia. But the pet store on St. Clair that specializes in aquariums either doesn't have what I want in stock, or their stock just arrived and yes, they have what I want but they can't find it. After a few attempts to get my supplies from them, I gave up and went to the mall.

For the last two days, I've been trying to order flowers to send to a friend. The local florist was closed yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. I went again today. The shop was still closed, the mail had been hung on the door handle, a co-op student was outside waiting to get in to work. She told me the shop opens at noon and the owner should show up any minute. It was 1 pm. Later, I phoned them and was assured they were open. I went in again and browsed around for five minutes. I went through the flowers in their fridge, didn't like them, and left. There was no staff or anyone in the store the whole time. They left the shop open but unattended.

So I went home, picked up a vase, and headed to the local supermarket's garden centre. I consulted with the staff, who helpfully recommended flowers that suited the size and height of the vase I brought, worked with me to select the colour scheme, and told me how to arrange the flowers. I asked them to put the flowers in the vase. They said,

"If we do that, we have to charge you 25% more for the flowers."

"Because I want you to put the flowers in the vase instead of wrapping them? I am saving you the labour and wrapping material and you want to charge me more?"

"Yes. Because we have to charge for flower arranging."

"You don't have to arrange the flowers. You've already told me how to do that. I'll arrange them when I get home. I just want to put the flowers in the vase so I don't have so much garbage."

"We still have to charge 25% extra. We can't sell you flowers in your vase."

"Fine. Wrap up the flowers so I can throw the paper out when I get home."

I also started buying Christmas greenery for the house exterior today. I rejected the expensive prepared urns and wreaths at the garden centre and opted for cheaper green stuff at the local Chinese grocery store. I bought two swags of pine and a bunch of red branches. As I am paying for them, the shopowner said,

"You shouldn't be buying these, you know."

"Oh?"

"You should grow them. Then you can just cut them from your tree instead of spending money on them."

"I won't be able to grow a tree in time for Christmas."

"Put these in water and see if you can grow from these. And these red branches? If you put them in water, they grow white leaves. Grow them for next year."

Maybe my money's no good in this hood.