Sorry honey, no roses, chocolate or diamonds

It's Valentine's Day and feeling more lazy than romantic, I haven't yet got my wife anything. There's still time to think of something, either a great gift I can buy or a great excuse she'll buy.

"Most roses in the U.S. are grown in Latin America. And they are grown in a way that uses a lot of chemicals," said Rene Ebersole at the environmental Audubon Magazine. [Link]

"I thought of buying you roses, honey, but then I heard about the pesticides. I wouldn't want anything to hurt you. That's how much I love you."

Ivory Coast, which grows 40 percent of the world's cocoa, has a persistent child labour problem, a U.S. State Department human rights report said. [Link]

"I thought of buying you chocolate, honey, but then I heard about all those poor children, slaving away in Ivory Coast. It just isn't right. I wouldn't want to do anything that might tarnish my feelings for you."

Then what about blood diamonds -- the term referring to gems mined under brutal conditions and sold to support a war effort? [Link]

"I thought of buying you diamonds, honey, but then I heard about all the suffering they had wrought. I just couldn't get myself to do it. My heart would have been filled with guilt, instead of love."

"So what did you get me, Melvin?"

"Well ... uh ... I got you a poem."

"You wrote a poem for me? That's so romantic! Can I hear it?"

"Roses are red
Violets are blue
I thought of buying you something
but this will have to do."

Photo by gutter

Comments

[Divya Rao]

Very matter-of-facts-and-stats reason! I wonder what the response was, in this case, because obviously there is no effect of plagiarizing an age old rhyme. But that's just me!
Nice work.