On my birthday a bunch of 99 roses was delivered to my door by the express man. For Chinese lovers 9 (jiu) sounds the same as "everlasting".

The atmosphere was perfectly romantic when the sender arrived and I stood there grinning like a Cheshire cat as photos were taken.

When I finally came back to reality I realized my arms were aching from holding the heavy bunch of flowers for so long.

Then came the obvious question: Where should I put all these roses? I didn't have a vase big enough for 99 roses and I did not have enough containers. So, I left them on the sofa.

The next morning I was relieved to find that although some of the petals had inky fringes they had not withered.

Roses, I understand, are a symbol of undying love because of a famous painting called The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli, which depicts roses being scattered about as Venus, the goddess of love, rises out of the sea.

If I did not care for the flowers and they died, I worried whether this would be a bad omen for our relationship.

I paced up and down thinking about what to do until I felt dizzy and had to sit down. Finally, I decided to get a big vase at IKEA.

The variety of vases available was amazing and it was hard to choose one. Eventually, after eating an irrationally expensive hotdog, I bought a simple but elegant vase.

Back home, it was not easy to arrange all 99 roses in the vase. As such, I proceeded carefully for, as we all know, both love and roses have thorns.

At last, there were 95 roses arranged in the vase (four had died), which is not an auspicious number. I would simply have to buy four more.

With a sigh I realized that roses may represent love, but they can be a blooming nuisance and are expensive.

The article first appeared on Sanlian Life Weekly