I’m calling it the five-hundred-dollar-mum.

When I was a teenager, it was pretty much all about the flower, thus the name Homecoming “MUM”.  You were lucky if a guy bought you a single mum; he really liked you if you got a “double”; if you received a “triple” it meant you were something extra special … but you had to wear a suit of armor beneath your dress just to hold the thing up.

These were real flowers and getting real flowers on any occasion was truly exciting.  I don’t know exactly when or why they went to fake ones, but those of us from my generation will never understand why these are preferred over the real McCoys. 

There were ribbons on them with our names and everything, but it wasn’t about the ribbons.  Please note that they are not called “Homecoming Ribbons”.   An occasional trinket may have hung from them, but it wasn’t about those either. 

But now they need to change the name.  The fake flower is there as an afterthought.  What’s it’s about now is bows, ribbons, curls, glitter, stuffed animals, and just about anything else they can get to stick with hot glue.  We should call it the “Homecoming Gift Shop” or something.

I went to the florist last year with my son to select a mum for his date.  We picked out a nice one, I thought, and asked the price.

“Thirty-five dollars,” she said.  That sounded pretty reasonable.

“Do you want names on it?” she asked.  “That’ll be five dollars extra.”

Turns out everything is extra.  Bells, whistles, braids, little footballs, paw prints, pretty ribbons.  We kept adding stuff ‘til we thought we had the perfect combination.

“That’ll be $110.00,” she informed us.

This is when you don’t want to act surprised and are hoping the redness is your face will be mistaken for sunburn.  You start saying stuff like, “That bell really isn’t all that special” or “We can put ‘Liz’ instead of ‘Elizabeth’.” Subtracting ‘til you can afford it becomes the name of the game.  I think any of you who have picked out a mum recently know what I’m talking about.

Well, this year several of us moms decided we’d save some money.  Two moms went hunting for all the stuff, went to two different stores in two different towns, and had bags full of trinkets and ribbons.  We met one Saturday morning to throw these things together.  “This isn’t going to take very long,” we thought.  “Aren’t we the smart ones?” we thought.

There were three of us at first.  We fumbled and stapled, and cut and curled.  A fourth mom came by to check on us and told us we were doing it all wrong.  She ended up staying the whole time to help.

We ran out of ribbon, so one mom made a run to the store.  Then we ran out of something else, and another trip was made.  We were well into the noon hour and couldn’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel, so we broke for lunch. 

It took the rest of the afternoon.  Yes, they turned out great.  Yes, my son approved of the one I made for his date.  No, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.

I figure if I count up the hours four moms spent on the dern things and multiply it by a fair price per hour, add in what the supplies cost, well, this mum was close to $500.

One of my daughter’s friends found out I had made this mum and pleaded with me, “PLEASE, Mrs. Higgins, will you make one for me?”

“Sure, honey,” I answered.  “Do you have five hundred dollars?”