Tulips from Amsterdam

Tulips from Amsterdam is a wry phrase in a small exchange between Gerry and Stella: when she asks whether the mixed bulbs he has brought are tulips, he hopes they are not, since the coincidence would give her a joke at his expense. The phrase turns an uncertain bag of flowers into a potential souvenir pun, while leaving the bulbs’ actual contents unresolved.

The Phrase in Context

Gerry hands Stella a bag of mixed bulbs, identified only as what the seller said they were. She peers through the netting and suggests planting them out front, though the season for planting has already been missed. Her question about tulips prompts Gerry’s concern that the bulbs might make the Amsterdam-linked phrase literally apt.

Uncertainty and Humor

Gerry admits that tulips may be among the bulbs, but he does not know their colour or what else is in the bag; he mentions narcissi as another possibility. His uncertainty sustains the joke rather than resolving it. The exchange ends with the practical detail that he briefly feared the bulbs might be confiscated at security, bringing the flowers’ passage through the airport into the same lightly comic conversation.