Trust and Be Trusted

　They sell lilies in Makkari, which is only 10 minutes drive from Rusutsu. They have a whole variety of colors and types there, starting from seedlings in pots and finishing with gorgeous white Casablanca lilies, which any bride would like to have in her bouquet. All flowers are in big buckets, you can pick up everything you like and make a bouquet the size you want. There’s the same price on all the buckets – 100 yen, but some flowers are 100 yen per flower while others are 100 yen for 2 or three. They have scissors to cut the flowers, containers to throw away leaves, and newspapers to wrap the flowers. Seedlings are in boxes, and each box has a name of the type and a photo of a blossoming flower. You go to pay money after your bouquet is done and you’ve picked up pots you like, and then you find an interesting thing here. There’s no sale assistant! There’s an old milk jar with a hole in it where you put money. Nobody is checking if you have paid correctly. But the most amazing thing is that people do pay for what they buy! They’ve been selling flowers there for 5 or 6 years, if not more, and the number of people as well as the number of flower types is constantly increasing. I am never tempted to pay less than I owe when I buy flowers there. I guess it’s because I try to justify the trust I was honored with.