I feel your pain. But I've been growing orchids for over 30 years and you come to expect to lose a flower. I don't know how many times I've broken off buds out of negligence. Reaching over to pick one plant, only to break off the buds off the plant in the front of the bench. Flowers come and go. I get more terrified of losing a plant. All are very valuable and seeing a one-of-a-kind cattleya succumb is really heart-breaking. Sometimes irreplaceable.

You say, "OH, S***!!" (or substitute your personal favorite)

Then, you remember that you only get one mother this side of heaven and that she probably feels really bad about making you sad...maybe even worse than you do about losing the bud.

Sweetcicely

Scott, from your title, I was expecting multiple choice from all the profanity in English and a couple of other languages. LOL

That sounds awful, to lose the flower. And it would have to be that exact one, of course.

I wouldn't have said anything, either. What is there to say that won't make your mom feel worse, if she knew how excited you were over this flower? If she didn't, all the better.

You still have the plant, and you still have your mom... unless you've offed her in the meantime. Whitecat8

I would say, "That does it. I'm going out and buying another Catasetum Orchidglade 'Davie Ranches' just like it so that if something happens to one, I'll still have the other, and I don't care if I have to search all over the net to get one."

This is so poignant! You are a wonderful son (evidenced by the fact that you know how to make a stiff cocktail). I'm assuming you made one for your mom as well. I like orchid126's solution, but if you find that pricey, you can always bust up the one you have. Like toyo, I have been growing (and not growing) for over thirty years. It only takes one natural disaster or life crisis to make you lose an entire collection. I know as I have recently started to rebuild my collection. You bloomed this Catasetum once and you can do it again. Orchids are the ultimate test of patience.

Yeah Toyo, I know what you mean about losing one of a kind plants.
Although not rare Catts, like your's, I've lost some rare wild collected Dracs!
It just kills you.
Especially, when you won't be able to get them again and it was unusual to aquire them in the first place!:~(
Come to think about it...
I have lost a couple of cherished cultivars.
I lost my first Catt. percivaliana 'Sonia de Urbana' and a few others that I don't feel like talking about.
(sniffle...)
Some were replaced, but some weren't.
Just too expensive to do over.:~(

Whitecat, I was actually more upset in losing some of my rare Bulbo blooms recently.
But with them...
They just dimped or whatever!:~(
Likely too dry.
Catasetums really aren't my thing, but a couple really caught my eye.
I lost my 'Pierre Couret' last year.
It just wouldn't do anything and finally gave up.

I can't really see myself buying that many more.
It's a really spectacular bunch of blooms.
Far larger than I thought that they'd be and it would've been great to see all three mature blooms.
but, I'll live.
I'm working out a large order of Neos, so I won't really have a lot of extra cash laying about.
I figure that the total is going to be a little painful!;~)

I know that it wasn't intentional, that's why I only used the one expletive, before walking away from it all.
Now I have others that would have caused far more sparks.

"Orchids are the ultimate test of patience"
Actually, it's more like...
Living with your family, again, and orchids are the ultimate test of patience!! ;~)

And, you assumed wrong about making her one as well.
I wasn't in the mood to share, plus...
It was early afternoon and I was still nursing my coffee!
Juggling two is bad enough, let alone three!;~)

Living with my family tests my patience way more than my orchids ever do!

*sigh*

I'm actually kind of embarrassed about this story...I can be such a doormat.

I bought my first orchid last week. I went in to see my florist friend at his work (grocery store floral shop) and saw a beautiful yellow and pink Phal (the only one that wasn't pink or white) and fell in love with it. Their entire shipment had come in with chilling injury so they were marked down about 50%. I resisted at first, but then a few days later he called to tell me "my" orchid was still there, so I decided it was fate and drove up there. I never did actually examine the entire plant, just paid and left. My friend mentioned I would want to pick up some orchid food, but they were out so I stopped at a local orchid shop nearby to pick some up and get some advice. We got to talking and I decided to run out to the car to get it and when I brought it in, the owners looked at it and started fretting over what they thought was fungus (in addition to the cold damage). Well, to make a long story short, the gal convinced me to let them re-pot it and sent it back with her employee. She told me to go back with her if I wanted to watch and the owners left for lunch. At one point, the front door opened and she turned her head to look and broke the flower stalk off.

I really didn't know what to say or do! It was a genuine accident and so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, figuring she would offer to do something for me, like not charge me for the pot. Nope, she just apologized and otherwise blew it off. I realize it probably wasn't her place to make that kind of call, but if it had been me in her shoes I would have at least referred the customer to the owner or just taken care of it and worried about covering my butt with the boss some other way.

In retrospect, if I would have pulled my head out of my butt for two seconds I could have avoided the whole fiasco. I got all nervous and lost all my confidence, in part because I've convinced myself to be scared of growing orchids (and I'm a doormat).

*sad*

oh no, J_nail - that's too bad! :( What DO you say in that kind of situation though? :S Actually if it was a plant I really treasured and it was a stranger who did it and didn't realize the magnitude of their action, I think I would be too distraught to keep quiet. I'd probably involuntarily yell some sort of profanity like "Oh C**P that spike just broke off! *@#$!"

My little cousins came to stay at my house for a few days a couple of months back and they were running around the house playing. I came home and saw one of my plants had been 'repotted'...curious, I asked other members of the family what had happened and they all kind of looked away...and then my poor cousin came up to me, filled with fear and admitted to knocking the plant over...apparently everyone in the household had taken a turn emphasizing to the boy how important the orchids are to me, that they're priceless, delicate flowers that I've labored hours over......poor kid was frightened to death. So I just kind of laughed and said 'Don't worry about it!' and he was so relieved. It did help that it was a little noid phal...if it had been my neofinetia I may have had a bit of a harder time controlling myself. But ultimately when it comes to people, for me, family and good friends come before the chids :)

It was such a weird situation! I mean, I had owned it less than 30 minutes when she broke it!!! I don't even know...