Hawaii flower hazards

      Tables at the outdoor food court at the University of Hawaii have umbrellas for protection from the sun, rain, birds … and flowers.  Protection from flowers, you ask?  Don’t laugh.  Flowers drop from trees in Hawaii all the time and frequently land in food or coffee.  Before I moved to Hawaii, I did not consider flowers to be a hazard, but now I do on at least three counts.

      One tree that I pass by regularly has large yellow flowers.  They are about the size of a fist.  As I passed under it one rainy day, a rain-soaked bloom water-bombed me.  I felt a damp "plop" on my head.  My first fear was that it came from a relieved bird, but no, I was dive-bombed by a dropping blossom.  It would never have occurred to me to avoid walking under trees due to the danger of dropping flowers, but now I do so or make sure my hood is up.

      The second hazard is slipping on sidewalks covered in flowers.  It took me a very long time to be able to walk on flowers.  Even though they fall on the ground all over, it just seemed wrong to trod on such beautiful blooms.  Once my aesthetic aversion passed, I realized that they are slippery when wet.  The same yellow-flower tree that plopped on my head caused me to slide and gyrate wildly when walking on the wet sidewalk beneath.  Flowers are way slipperier than wet leaves and I can’t really think of an adequate description — but I now avoid flower-covered concrete when it’s wet to minimize the risk of a slip and fall.  Maybe insurance companies in Hawaii would be sympathetic to the claim, but I imagine snickering and wild hysteria in sterile cubicles when reviewing my paperwork.

      The third reason to be wary of flowers in trees is that they take flight with the breeze and alight in my lunch, or my beverage.  I swear that’s the primary reason for the umbrellas.  The sun really isn’t overbearing most of the time and the rain most often takes the form of a gentle mist.  But a recent attempt to read and sip coffee at an uncovered table resulted in me waving off dropping petals as though they were insects.  Shoo!

      The other possibility for umbrellas is protection from birds, but they usually just walk up and panhandle, rather than passing overhead.  But that’s the subject for another post.
 

Posted by Cindy Scheopner  Follow me on Twitter @Scheopner

Published by Bruce Fisher

Since 2006 Bruce Fisher has been publishing the Hawaii Vacation Blog and the Hawaii Vacation Connection Podcast which, create daily content about Hawaii Travel and Tourism. This Blog is the only online resource providing Hawaii-based information aimed at travelers seven days per week. Postings reflect the Hawaiian Islands, their culture and their lifestyle as accurately and thoroughly as possible.

1 comment June 17th, 2010