Flaunting the Cactus: Caption That Cover!

Teri S. sent me the following book cover, saying that it HAD to be an excellent book, what with the cover and the title.

image

Now, I think that’s hilarious. Almost as hilarious as the couple embracing in the avocado field, which, according to the person who was looking for that book, features the tagline, “The avocado farm was going well, but who could have predicted Jane’s brain aneurysm?….” Wow. From One More Chance among the avocodos to A Flaunting Cactus, old-old-skool Harlequin titles are as much fun as the newer-old-skool titles they’ve recently stopped using.

(NB: I was reading a Sara Craven book, The Highest Stakes Of All, which was pretty much about a woman who allows her long-absent con-artist father to re-enter her life and treat her as a hot distracting accessory to his poker games, all but prostituting her while insisting she pose as his niece. I couldn’t help but wonder what the title would have been had Harlequin not switched their title style. The Assmunch Absent Father’s Highest Stakes? Folded By The Greek Billionaire’s Disdain? Overboard: Where Her Father Was Thrown?)

Anyway, I digress. Since Teri sent me that cover, I’ve found myself wondering what the hell a Flaunting Cactus is. I mean, I know it’s a prick but it is also PRICKLY? If I’m not in a desert climate, do I look for Flaunting Daffodils? What does the title MEAN? Yet Teri and I still don’t know what it means.

So in a variation of Caption That Cover, please, tell me: what’s a flaunting cactus? Don’t Google the book itself – that’ll spoil the fun! Is the Flaunting Cactus the dance they’re doing? Are those balloons in PERIL? (Summon Balloony Tunes to the rescue!)

Winner of the best caption or explanation as voted by me (but feel free to pimp your fave) will get a $25 gift card to the bookstore of his/her choice. Standard disclaimers apply: I am not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Watch that cactus. Do not under any circumstances get caught between the moon and New York City. You’ve got 24 hours to hook me up with a viable explanation or caption.

Please, PLEASE, help us out here: What the hell is a Flaunting Cactus?!

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General Bitching...

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  1. I’ll take a guess at the real meaning because the term itself defies humor, when cacti are flaunting, nothing more need be said.  It probably means that the heroine is prickly (euphemism for bitchy) but love brings her into bloom (read: makes her less abrasive and therefore more worthy of love) although that makes me wonder what the heck is wrong with just being a cactus.

    Lynn S, I think you’re right. You can see tiny snippets of the book via Google Books and on page 78 there’s this:

    ‘I did not sleep well, as it happens – but you saw to that, didn’t you? How dare you call me a con-woman? You called me a flaunting cactus. That was bad enough!’

    Over at fictiondb there’s a synopsis and it seems that the flaunting cactus has a friend called Holly:

    Could she ever trust a man again?

    Kristen was able to cope with the two-timing of her fiance because by then she had met Nick, the only living relative of her dear friend, Holly.

    Nick’s wealthy aunt had a big heart, and Kristen had learned to accept gracefully the “little gifts” that came her way. Her friend’s generosity was boundless.

    But she couldn’t help but wonder if that generosity didn’t somehow account for Nick’s sudden and passionate courtship.

    The “flaunting cactus” would seem to be a phrase from a poem, “Of Hidden Uses” by Martin Farquhar Tupper. It begins by mentioning the useful properties of a variety of plants.

  2. henofthewoods says:

    They are daredevils who are so superstitious that they don’t use the word death when they say “flaunting death” – instead they substitute “cactus”. You should hear them at a funeral.

    I’m not even reading any of the above comments until later today, but I don’t think this will repeat someone else’s idea.

  3. KiriD says:

    Flaunt:  To show off.
    Cactus: a succulent plant with spines.

    A Flaunting Cactus then is a Cactus that shows off.  Wait that can’t be right, but it is, it is the dictionary definition. 

    I am going to have to go with this idea instead.  A Flaunting Cactus is a woman who Shows off how good she thinks she is at suc(culenting) a man.

  4. Jayne says:

    It’s a prick in your succulents. HEYO

  5. Hypothetical jacket copy:

    Madeleine San Saguaro had inherited a small fortune from her late father—but she’d need a large one to keep the family balloon-making business from being permanently popped.  The only possible solution?  The prickly heiress had to convince ne’er-do-well millionaire Ryder Letterbuck to marry her assets to his portfolio of carnival-goods companies.  That meant the Cactus Queen had to flaunt something more attractive than her needle-sharp tongue—and to discover the hidden depths of the man his enemies described as a living ventriloquist’s dummy.

  6. Yamyam says:

    Two words (and forgive me for being rude here)

    Cactus Envy

  7. snethet says:

    It’s kind of a bummer that I had to take my mom to the prom.  Maybe if I act like I’m making out with her, no one will notice.

  8. PamG says:

    The Flaunting Cactus is an exciting and romantic tale (a la DaVinci Code) of an intense art collector and passionate insurance adjuster who team up to discover Georgia O’Keeffe’s lost masterpiece, The Flaunting Cactus, created in her declining years as a response to all the Freudian alpholes who had trouble recognizing flowers for 50 years.  Fascinated by the artist’s “prickly personality,” our hero and heroine become totally fixated on O’Keeffe’s legendary “sexguaro,” long hidden and secretly worshiped by a cult of balloon sculpting clowns named Spike.

  9. Tx jenny says:

    Anyone else think the balloons on the cover look like super-hero egg chasers? if you got it, mr. cactus, flaunt it!

  10. Pria says:

    I’m also going with the shifter theory but I say she is the shifter—she can shift into a cactus. Look at her dress (bright flowers)—it obviously indicates a cactus lives within her, just waiting to be flaunted.

    I’m not quite sure what the benefits of shifting into a cactus are—the ability to survive on very little water? she’s super prickly so villains can be stung? She moonlights as a boxer so can jab her enemies?—but she definitely has a spine, which is more than can be said for quite a few old skool heroines [sorry! it was difficult to resist the puns :-)]

  11. ninjapenguin says:

    Jessi was one of the best Mad Lib authors in the business, but her career seemed to preclude dreams of romance.  Then on the New Years Eve cruise, she met Matt, a lounge singer, and immediately found herself arguing—and flirting—with the __adjective__ man.  Tall, dark, and with an enormous __synonym_for_prick__, he was everything she’d thought she’d never find in a partner.  But could this vacation fling turn into a permanent romance? Or would she have to give up __A_FLAUNTING_CACTUS__?

  12. The Flaunting Cactus:  A sexual move only attempted once in the annals (heh) of romance, by a Harlequin hero named Guy McHairspray in 1988.  The move, a combination of turgid thrusting, whispering silkily, and making decisions for the heroine’s own good, failed so spectacularly that Guy had to be put in traction.  Oh, and there was a pommel horse.  When the heroine, Mary Sue Picket, visited Guy in the hospital after the attempted Flaunting Cactus she met a handsome doctor who didn’t force-kiss her once, leading to her defection mid-way through the book, in a move that’s now know as the dreaded “Flapping Hippopotamus.”  No matter how many times Guy subsequently kidnapped Mary Sue, she would not fall in love with him, which is why the Flaunting Cactus is avoided by romance authors ever since.

  13. Chelsea says:

    Flaunting the Cactus involves leaving one’s armpits unshaven for several days and then proceeding to don one’s flowered evening gown and dance through a cloud of balloons with one’s unwanted romantic pursuer.

  14. April says:

    You guys are way too good.  I’m too busy laughing to come up with anything amusing myself.

    All I could think was that A Flaunting Cactus had to be a professional male escort – showing off his prick for money.

  15. morwen says:

    A Flaunting Cactus refers to a specific type of alpha male. On the outside he’s sharp and prickly, but once you’ve cut him open you realize that he’s really refreshing water.

  16. EC Spurlock says:

    This is a flaunting cactus:
    http://www.girlswithslingshots.com/comic/gws132/

  17. miz_geek says:

    We used to go out to the Flaunting Cactus all the time.  Good music, cheap drinks, and great Tex-Mex food.  Too bad they shut it down for all those health code violations.

  18. Laura Xixi says:

    flaunting cactus (n): a (primarily male) hair-do, sometimes known as a “reverse mullet”. Originally intended as an alternative to wearing an erect phallus on one’s head to advertise one’s manliness, the flaunting cactus has also acquired a secondary meaning in the martial art known as “offensive hair styling”: if properly constructed with enough hair gel, a flaunting cactus can be used to poke out an opponent’s eye. Also useful for preventing dance partners for getting too up in your grill.An excellent example can be seen in this cover on the male model.

    captcha: volume69: yes, with the right amount of volumizer you could…wait…no, pausing that thought right there.

  19. Jemma says:

    Maybe it is because we just has an election here in Canada, but at first glance I read “Flatulating Caucus”

    Apparently at the Conservative Party’s election win celebration last Monday, the guacamole was a little too potent.

  20. JamesLynch says:

    Flaunting the cactus: Euphemism #438,925 for male masturbation, this one involves a substantial amount of masochism due to the use of an actual cactus.  Details are pretty painful, but suffice it to say the person who “flaunts his cactus” should be sure to have a tweezer handy for afterwards.

  21. Kayla says:

    Determined Bob knew show-off Sue would play hard to get…but he didn’t know she could be as prickly as her legs!

    A FLAUNTING CACTUS

  22. Phedre says:

    A rare case of a erect furry penis recently shaved sporting a five o’clock shadow

  23. Theresa says:

    Ok, the Flaunting Cactus did catch my attention but I was quickly diverted by the sperm-like balloons and streamers.  The little swimmers are heading toward the heroine….Am I the only one who saw this?

    spamword: army58.  I stand corrected, the army of little swimmers heading toward the heroine…

  24. Chelsea B. says:

    She has no idea, like the rest of us, but—ow! She’s pretty sure it’s poking her in the stomach.

  25. Diva says:

    Flaunting Cactus is an early precursor of the much itchier and more painful Flaming Cactus characterized by the telltale rash whose pattern is suggestive of…balloons floating away.

    Also, what is with the cover? Old people go to prom? Scary Dynasty extra seduces the caterwaiter?

  26. Bets says:

    The mating dance of spiky haired adolescent punks, rarely seen in captivity.

  27. Merry says:

    Wow. I don’t have a witty caption (I’ve been having too much fun reading all the submissions to think of my own), but I realized thanks to this cover that you know you’re a ballroom dancer when the first thing you think is “PUT YOUR SHOULDERS DOWN, WOMAN.”

  28. SusanL says:

    Quite simply, calling someone a Flaunting Cactus is a more genteel way of calling them a Preening Prick.

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