The young man at the flower shop was taking an unusually long time to place his order. When the clerk asked how she could help, he explained that his girlfriend was turning nineteen and he couldn't decide whether to give her a dozen roses or nineteen roses -- one for each year of her life.

The woman put aside her business judgment and advised, "She may be your nineteen-year-old girlfriend now, but someday she could be your fifty-year-old wife."

The young man bought a dozen roses.