Lessons From the Kissing Booth

Yesterday, walking home from work, just past the window that sometimes has kittens but so inconsistently that it's maddening, there was a box of flowers. You could smell it before you reached it, which was disconcerting itself in a part of the neighborhood that almost always smells like urine and spoiled produce. Inside it was packed with five or six mixed bouquets, wilting slightly, with no one nearby who seemed like they would be in charge of this box of flowers.

I stopped and contemplated it for a minute, sheepishly. What was it there for? Would someone noticed if I took a bunch? Were they there for taking? There are always a handful of other people walking one way or another on the sidewalk, and none of them seemed interested in this box of flowers. As usual, I wondered briefly if I was imagining them.

I left them all there, ultimately. Possibly free flowers don't counteract possibly stolen flowers, and I'm just not willing to take that chance with my agreement with the universe. Anyway, it was nice enough just to visit them.