Every Rose has its, Owwww!!!

 Circa 1970, my 4th grade walk home from Rushmore School was only 6 blocks. For some reason, on that day, there was no one to walk home from school with. Oh, well.

I decided that it would be a great idea to snatch some pretty red roses off of a rosebush for my Mom. On my way home I saw a nice rose bush on the side of a house. Without considering concealment and thinking the task to be OK to undertake, I began to bend and snap the branches of the Owwww!, rosebush with a nice rose at the end. One, two, three, Owwww!!!, four…OK, five is enough, Owwww! These thorns hurt.
   My Mom is gonna love these. I(‘d) better hold them like this – Owwww!!! Not like that, dummy. I wonder what’s for snack at home. I have a math test tomorrow. Does Steve have a game today? Owwww!!!
   Thorn jabs dotted my not-yet-ten-year-old hands. The beauty of the roses hid the thin lines of blood from each puncture and scratch. I surely gave my body to the game. In science class he said that the thorns protected the plant and the rose. No joke. I walked away from the shocked rosebush and did not see the resident, not yet shocked. I didn’t even realize that I was in the clear, having zero forethought to my action’s repercussions. My Mom is gonna love these.
My well-intended but hardly terrible deed went unseen. Unbeknownst to the homeowner, adult, child, or a nosey neighbor. Any one of them would surely have objected with a “Hey, kid, get out of there!” or a “Get off my property or I’ll call the police!” That surely would have gotten the attention of an innocent and mindless 4thgrader. What a bummer it would be to have the cops involved in the whole operation.
This was a stupid idea. I may get in some trouble. Nahhh. Owww! Stupid school bag. Trudging smartly home I put down the book bag on the front stoop. I cradled the roses, Owww! Shoot! That one hurt. I leaned against the door as I got all of the stuff inside, I yelled, “Mom, I’m home!” like she didn’t hear me come in.

“These are for you, Mom.”
“Oh, they’re beautiful. Where did you get them?”
“From down the street.” (Like I bought five roses from a florist or a flower stand. “$4.25? Here’s $5, keep it.”)
“Did you take these from someone’s rosebushes?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
“What do you mean, kinda?” Mom’s tone more direct, “Where did you take these from?”
“Down the street, on Rushmore Avenue. Near the school.”
“Let me get my pocketbook. Leave your bookbag here, take the roses. Be careful.”
“Owwww!!!” (I’m being punished already)…

   Mom took me to the house to return the roses. The woman who answered the door was old, like my Mom. She was mad but she saw that my Mom was teaching me a lesson. The lady came outside and looked at her rosebush. It didn’t look too bad, I said. She did not agree. She looked at me with mean eyes. I looked away. My Mom said, “To steal was to break one of God’s Ten Commandments.” What’s next, I self-queried? Maybe I’ll covet something, whatever that means. I wondered, Am I in trouble?
The beautiful red roses, if clipped tactfully, may have fooled the homeowner but not my Mom. When presented with five roses with thorny, prickly stems broken 6 inches from the bud, where else could they have been from? The smart Mom says, “Where did you get them?”

   I hadn’t realized that I was pilfering the roses. I hadn’t been able to understand the whole private property issue. It’s only a darn bush. The lady took the roses into her house. My Mom said, “I’m sorry,” to the woman one more time and we trudged home. Mom was surely gonna tell Dad about this one. She said that I had behaved poorly, that I was irresponsible. Irresponsible? There’s nothing wrong with my ears.

   My Dad was a hard-working, proud homeowner gifted with a head for landscaping and possessed a green thumb, from study and toil. He knew full well the struggles and pride of growing beautiful roses. Roses tend to be a pride and joy of any gardener, with their glorious blooms and their spectacular dominance.
Upon hearing my story from my Mother’s mouth, he let me tell my version of it. He was displeased with me yet didn’t punish me. Thank you, God. Writing anything 100 times would surely be bad. My Dad, being an awesome guy, thought it right to buy the woman a medium sized rose bush to plant next to the rose bush that I had harshly treated. It probably set him back $12 bucks, back in 1970. He would have given the sparsely-shrubbed property a re-do if it was his place to do so. The next Saturday my Dad made me go there and give them the new rose bush. Owww!!! Let that be the last one. Stupid bush.  Stupid thorns. The lady was grateful and said that I didn’t have to plant it for her, that her husband would plant it. That’s cool, I probably said.
   My Dad let me make the work up to him by helping him clean the garage or pull weeds or wash the dog or paint something. It’s just a bush, I undoubtedly mumbled.
So, to those of you who are pondering a petty crime to please one’s mother, don’t do it. Do not rudely pilfer your neighbor’s rose bush. It is stealing. It was vandalism, at best. It is not right. It is totally against what my Mom, Dad, my school, and my family’s church had taught me. It was a bad moment for a good kid. Here, Mrs. Barrett, here are your roses. And a new rose bush, too. Owwww!!! Sorry.

Mom, I love you, but next time you’re getting ten Dandelions.
Richard Melnick, June 3, 2021