‘Fill it up' with love

(Yes, the headline was stolen from a song by Sting), By Laurie Gordon and Stacey Mason Sussex County - If you don’t receive flowers on any other day of the year, receiving them on Valentines day can be, well, an aphrodisiac. It’s a day someone thought you were special enough to splurge on and make your day a little sunnier with freshly cut flowers. Valentine’s Day is a special day set aside for acknowledging your sweetheart, and other loves in your life. Is there any better way to celebrate love than with flowers? With the chaotic lives so many lead today, the idea that someone took the time to run an extra errand and choose the flowers (or another thoughtful, romantic gift) is downright heartwarming. WFAN radio personality Evan Roberts spins quite a yarn when it comes to Valentine’s Day. Like many guys, a few years ago, he’d forgotten it was Feb. 14. (Well, maybe he knew it was the 14 but it wasn’t until late in the day he remembered it was Valentine’s Day.) Desperate for a last minute gift for his girlfriend, he flew into a 7-Eleven on his way home. The store was out of real flowers, so Roberts did what every baseball-watching, apple pie-eating American male would do: he improvised. Later, as he handed plastic flowers to his girlfriend, a look of pure mortification came over her face. Undaunted, Roberts made an amazing recovery to redeem the last-minute gift and with a few words, turned plastic posies into a declaration of love, saying that while real roses die, these, like their love, would last forever. Maybe in addition to shooting arrows of love into hearts, Cupid should start a side business shooting arrows of memory into men’s brains. Perhaps even better would be to give men the sweetness they want: freedom from running that extra errand and still coming out of the day smelling like a rose. After all, several gas stations in the area are selling roses at the pump. Sparta Shell at the corner of Woodport Road and East Mountain Road is selling them for the first time this year with roses provided from a local grower, said owner Guy Harby. “I thought it was a good idea, the customers have to stop here anyway. It’s one less thing you’ll need to worry about; get gas and roses all in one shot.” Every year, said an employee of the Exxon in Byram, “this station is full of guys stopping by on the way home from work looking for flowers or something. One guy last year said he was going to get a bag full of every chocolate bar that he could find. I think he [was] scared he was going to have trouble at home if he forgot.“ Frank McKevitt works at the Exxon on the corner of Routes 94 and 15 in Lafayette, and said it‘s almost comical. “Some of the guys have looks of panic on their faces when they pull in.” He has a great view of cars speeding in and men emerging to run into the station’s Kwik Pik Food Store. “Mostly they go for the roses,” McKevitt said, and for $9.99 it isn‘t a bad deal. He added, “We stock up, but sometimes we do run out on Valentine’s Day.” There’s a bit of a debate between how people feel about sharing romanticism with convenience or even if there’s a difference in the quality of the rose blossom coming from a gas station. “Picking up flowers at a gas station is a great salvation for desperate husbands, but if the flowers have been out in the cold all day, I’m sure they’d die by the end of the night,” said Diane Lapsley of Flanders. However, Fred Katz, a resident of Mount Olive Township and a repeat-customer of gas stations in the area, is very satisfied with the quality of the roses he has purchased for his wife over the years. “The bloom is just as nice as the $49 roses from the flower shop. They are all grown in the same place, the only difference is the lack of availability in colors. Only red is available at the gas station. I buy the ones with the tight buds, cut the stems and water them. Some are absolutely magnificent. My wife doesn’t care where they come from.” Exxon mini-marts aren’t the only stores hopping on Valentine’s Day. An employee at Seplow’s Liquors, in Newton, said that champagne and a bottle of good red wine are on the hot list for last minute shoppers. “There’s certain to be a line at the register that evening.” At the Byram Plaza, a sign at Results Fitness asks “Are you ready to put your heart in it?” The gym is offering a free one day pass and fitness evaluation with a personal trainer and a two for one special. For the last-minute dash, the gym is located conveniently along Route 206. Garden of Life, in Hamburg, has gift certificates and features hot stone massage, Steamy Wonder Canopy, aromatherapy and a new ginger mango scrub. They suggest, “Melt your Valentine’s heart” with a couple’s massage sweetheart special. In Sparta, a massage therapist on the corner of Woodport Road has a sign out advertising gift certificates. On the way home for commuters, it’s a quick stop for a gift of relaxation. Euro Day Spa, in Stanhope, is offering Valentine’s Day specials such as a 60-minute couple’s massage, a “Romantic Rose Petal Bath,” hand paraffin, and gift certificates for facials, massage, body wraps, body waxing, hot tubs, saunas, hydrotherapy, and even a detox program. Pati Heal, owner of Salon Di Panache in Newton, has a Valentine’s Day offer of a “Love is in the Air” gift certificate. Regularly priced at $95, Heal is offering this “lover’s hot stone massage with cinnamon love oil” for $70. At Legacy Audio and Video, that has stores in both Sparta and Oak Ridge, a message urges, “Show her your love in beautiful high definition.” If you don’t have a big vehicle, don’t worry. They deliver and install the latest plasma HDTVs. Audrey Little, who works at Baker’s Pharmacy Card and Gift Shop in Sussex, has seen the last-minute rush as well. “Oh yes,” she said. “The guys come in and they have to quickly pick out a card and then they get a heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates and they’re on their way. They can’t go home empty handed on Valentine’s Day.” Vicki Ford, who runs the gifts section at North Country Pharmacy in Franklin said they only get the rush when Valentine‘s Day is during the week. The customers, she said, “always get a card first, then look for something to go along with it be it candy or a candle.” She said she hasn’t seen any looks of panic but ones of relief at the check-out register. “Sometimes they ask us for something and if we don’t have it, they buy something else.” Pharmacies are a popular last minute Valentine’s Day stop, and they know it. Most of the big chains put out circulars advertising their Valentine’s gifts the week before “the big day.” Rite Aid lists candy, two for $5, all sorts of Valentine hearts and “novelties with candy,” and an array of stuffed animals for gals of all ages. They even have boxers and a T-shirt that reads, “Too hot to handle” and a stuffed ape with “wild thing” written across his belly. Grocery stores, like the West Milford A&P, attract lots of people looking for cards and flowers, said Nicki Dobias, who works at the store. Grocery stores that have a liquor store in the store or nearby are popular stops, as Mike, an employee at the Netcong Shop Rite attested to. There, the liquor store is in the same building as the grocery store. “People go get their wine then grab a card and maybe a balloon or something,” he said. There are also some stores that are convenient to a certain crowd. Linda Worman remembered with a smile what the hospital gift shop in the Newton Memorial Hospital lobby was like on Valentine’s Day. During her time as the hospital‘s vice president of Patient Care Services, she saw lots of happy doctors and staff member emerge from the store on Valentine‘s Day. An employee at the Franklin Convenience Store was too busy to comment but said, fleetingly, “We’re always busy, but on that day, yes, we see many more people.” Finally, there are the flower shops who receive tons of last minute, sometimes panicky, calls from men who forgot. At Moyer’s, on Route 206 in Branchville, employee Jane Simmons said, “Sometimes we can do it and sometimes we can’t. If we can’t, out of courtesy, we refer them to someone else, but we do the best we can. “Our delivery will stay out as late as need be. If we take an order, we won’t leave anyone out. The flowers will get there on Valentine’s Day.“ Does it matter where the flowers came from? Does it matter if your sweetheart pulled a dead dandelion out of the lawn, or cut flowers from a field, bought them at a local florist, grocery store or a gas station? “I don’t mind if they come from a gas station; I just don’t want to hear about how cheap they were,” said Susan Simovich, a resident of Lake Hopatcong. In the end, the decision is a personal one; there is, however, a lot to be said about presentation. If someone presents the flowers with even the slightest hint of arrogance, smugness, or worse yet, boasts about how practical or cheap this gesture was, the impact of the gift may dissipate tremendously. The day, after all, is supposed to be about the thought behind the gesture, rather than the time and money saved.