Getting Carded On Mother’s Day

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Wednesday - May 21, 2008

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I don’t know what’s worse - buying greeting cards for Mother’s Day or buying them for Valentine’s Day. I’m going to go with Mother’s Day as the volume of cards I have to purchase is greater than the single one I get for my wife on Valentine’s.

Now I’m a card-carrying procrastinator, but the number of people who will wait until the day before Mother’s Day to purchase their Mother’s Day cards simply amazes me.

I do it because I like living on the edge.

It’s like filling up on gas - I’ll wait until I’m running on fumes before I head to the gas station. (By the way, even with the high cost of fuel, filling your wife’s gas tank does not count as an adequate Mother’s Day gift.) Anyway, if you’re shopping for a card the day before MD, you’re in trouble.

First of all, you know the long racks of Mother’s Day cards at the store? There’s only three cards left. OK, there’s more, but they’re the ones for your great-grandmother from your aunt’s step-brother. The appropriate selection is quite thin, forcing you to accept cards that no one else wanted to buy.

That’s if you can even get close enough to the cards. The people are three-deep, forming a wall in front of the card racks, kind of like a horizontal gauntlet. Since everyone in front of you is in the same situation as you are, they have to read every card that they pick up.

Getting to the cards is like getting through to the quarterback in the Super Bowl. You have to force your way in or else settle for buying your cards from 7-Eleven, which is actually not a bad idea.

Once you’re in the “front row section” and start selecting your card purchases, make sure the envelope you’re taking from behind the card is the right size for the card. I picked out five different cards and got out of my place before realizing I had no size-matching envelopes for about three of them.

I guess we can always fall back on the saying, “It’s the thought that counts.” The problem with that excuse is, in order to have thoughts, you must first have a functioning brain. Only a mother would forgive that flaw.