That's how we roll in Harlem.

So, the last time I got balloons delivered to me at school I was in high school. It's quite a different experience when you TEACH high school. Since they were delivered while I was teaching a class, I sent a student down to get them. My students sang Happy birthday to me and I continued the lesson (much to their disappointment. no birthday breaks for them.) After class I took a closer look:

Yes that balloon does say "happy father's day." the one next to it is a christening balloon.

Here's another view, it says congratulations.

At first I thought that my sister had chosen the random balloons to be funny. 

Then I saw the card:

It's the front of someone's used greeting card.  You can't see, but it wasn't even cut straight.  There's a jagged edge.

Here's the hand-scrawled message. 100 points if you can translate it.

There's a scripture from Psalms in the corner that's totally random.

My sister and I had agreed to talk after my last class, so I called to thank her. I started to send out feelers, because I didn't want her to think I couldn't take the joke. Then she asked me if I got the chocolates. It was at this point that we realized how they roll in flower shops in Harlem. 

She was stunned when I described to her balloon bouquet (which included 2 latex "feliz cumplianos" balloons, one mylar each of "happy father's day," "christening celebration"--who sends balloons to a christening? "congratulations"--it had been inflated for a few days, and two actual happy birthday ones) and card. Apparently she had ordered through FTD (who has a decent reputation) and they went through a local flower shop in Harlem. We discussed the probability that the delivery guy ate the chocolates, and wondered what crazy guy made the card. I found the whole thing to be quite funny. But I did suggest that she call and get her money back, because the "Ghetto Gift Bouquet" was probably not as expensive as the "Birthday Balloon Bouquet" she had intended.