Anne Palumbo: The hidden meaning of mums

"What's the matter?" my husband asked.

"I'm having a 'mum moment,'" I said, looking wistfully out the window. "It's already October, and I haven't purchased my mums yet. Susan's got a porch full. Terry's backyard is bursting with mums, and the mums surrounding Marilyn's mailbox would make any mum-lover weep. I don't know what's the matter with me this year."

My husband shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't you understand?" I said. "Mums are more than measly old flowers: they're seasonal icons, ushering in fall the way daffodils usher in spring. Mums are Mother Nature's last gasp of color. They're her way of letting us know that the horizon's about to go gray."

"Little old mums?" my husband said in disbelief.

"Not only that," I continued, "mums are a wake-up call to finish summer gardening projects before the ground freezes. Buy a few mums, and next thing you know, you'll be sinking those burning bushes that have been lounging by the side of the house since April."

"You mean I was supposed to plant those spindly things?" my husband asked.

"On top of that, mums serve as a poignant physical warning. Old Man Winter's about to blow in, they subliminally shout, time to start preparing our bodies for the dreaded season in the same way a dog thickens it coat. Time to, say, start sanding our skin so we can get a jump-start on the inevitable chafing that comes with the blistering winter winds."

"You, you sand your skin?"

"What's more," I said, ignoring his lame question, "mums give us something to talk about now, you know, the way mulch dominated our conversations in the spring. I can't tell you how many times I've given my dissertation on hardy versus feeble mums."

"There's a 'feeble' mum?"

"But more than anything," I said, "mums are the barometer of our emotional well-being. Every woman knows this."

"Please, tell me you're kidding," my husband said.

"It's true. If we're feeling fabulous, if we're enjoying a sensational haircut, if we can still fit into last winter's wool pants, then we're the first to buy mums. It's our way of letting the world know that everything's hunky-dory."

I looked down and bit my lip.

"On the other hand, if we've forgotten to return the library books we took out in June ... or if we insensitively asked the woman up the street if she was pregnant when she wasn't ... or if we accidentally cut our bangs shorter than the fella's on the Dutch Boy paint can, then we're the last to buy those lousy, little, stinkin' I'd-like-to-flatten-a-few-with-my-car mums!"

"Honey," my husband said, "you haven't purchased your mums."

"I know."

"Is there something you'd like to share with me?"

"Well," I said sheepishly, "you know that custom-made putter that you loved more than life itself ...?"

Anne Palumbo writes this weekly column for Messenger Post Newspapers. E-mail: avpalumbo@aol.com.