Unfiltered Story #295562

I did a lot of theatre in high school. Following what ended up being my final show, my grandparents bought me a small bouquet of roses. I absolutely love the flowers and end up gushing about them to my parents after going home for the night.

Me: “I was smiling like an idiot. Usually I just make myself sad by checking the flower buckets and candy gram bins, but Grandma and Grandpa came up to me after the show and gave me them!”

I’m smiling too hard to notice my parents’ expressions of horrified guilt. My school sets up a table during intermission for audience members, usually families, to cheaply buy either candy or a fresh rose for an actor, to be delivered to the green room with a name card and sometimes a note. My family has never even been near this table.

Dad: “Those things really mean that much to you?”

Me: “Yeah, but I haven’t gotten anything since my first [high school] show!”

The look of guilt only intensifies. I believe they are remembering exactly how many shows I was in since my first high school play in freshman year, and how many times I probably checked the candy boxes and flower buckets for anything with my name on it, sifting through dozens of candy boxes and flower tags with no luck. The gifts from my first show were sent by a handful of people I’d only met briefly a few weeks before who happened to be at the play.

Mom: “I am so sorry, we thought that you’d think they were useless and you’d think we were wasting money.”

I never did another show after that, but if I ever get back into acting, I fully believe that they’ll be waiting in the audience with a piece of candy or a rose.