Guess Who?!

First Valentine’s Day with Bob

1979.   Bob and I had only been dating a few months and I thought we had something pretty special going on.  Bob was the patrol sergeant at the northern division (SDPD) and I thought it would be great fun to send the grizzly sergeant a bouquet of flowers.  I ordered them from a local Pacific Beach florist, and they were delivered early in the morning at the lineup. 

I waited with anticipation to hear from Bob.  Was he surprised?  Did his coworkers tease him?  Was he happy to be fussed over by his new girlfriend?  I didn’t hear a word from him.  Now granted, this was before the days of cell phones and text messages, but I did expect a phone call.

I had a dinner planned for Bob that evening at my home.  I had prepared a special romantic meal and was eager to hear all about the flower delivery when he arrived at my home.  He arrived.  Nothing was said about the flowers.  I was a bit tense.  He seemed a bit tense.  Had I done something wrong by sending flowers? Had I embarrassed him?  Was it over the top for how early it was in our relationship?  Why didn’t he mention the flowers or thank me for them?

Well, the truth came out.  Within a few minutes of arriving, Bob nervously blurted out “did you send me flowers?  I said I had and followed up by asking him why in the world did he have to ask. Who else would they be from?  Oh my!  He explained that I signed the card “Guess Who” instead of using my name.  He wasn’t sure they were from me.  His previous girlfriend always signed cards “Guess Who” and he thought the flowers might be from her.  Oh my!  I didn’t know that there was a previous girlfriend who still might be sending flowers so there was lots of discussion about her. Not quite the first Valentine’s Day Date I anticipated.

The funniest part was that Bob had spent the better part of his day trying to track down who had actually sent the flowers.  He did an extremely hard press on the florist to see if they would tell him who had ordered the flowers, but they wouldn’t.  He tried a phone call and then went in person in uniform to the shop to try to convince them to “give up the source”. But they stood firm and didn’t give him a name.  Can you imagine the frustration when the policeman couldn’t solve the case?!

The craziest part of the night was that Bob admitted that he was so convinced that the flowers were NOT from me, that he thought about giving me the flowers that night.  Fortunately, he had second thoughts on doing that and he lived for us to have another date. 

And another. 

And another. 

And another.