Emily (Part Two)

After dinner, Emily and I made our way to the local Hallmark store to buy a card for her niece’s baptism the following weekend.

“You never see any funny baptism cards,” I pointed out.

“Well,” said Emily, “maybe that’s because there’s nothing funny about baptism.”

“Sure there is,” I said. “I mean, what if your niece poops during the blessed event?”

“My darling niece would never do such a thing,” she said, glaring at me.

“Yeah, but what if the priest drops her in the water?” I said. “That would be horrifying at first, but kind of funny later on.”

Emily punched my shoulder. Hard.

“You’re terrible,” she said, trying to fight back a smile while remaining indignant.

“Maybe she just needs some little water wings,” I said.

“Stop,” pleaded Emily. “Just stop. I need to find a card.”

“Okay,” I said, “how old is your niece?”

“Three months,” she said. “She was born in May.”

“Why are you getting her a card?” I asked. “She won’t be able to read it. She probably doesn’t even have the motor skills to open it. Or even hold it. In fact, it might even be more dangerous to give her a card, because she could get a paper cut.”

“I’m getting her a card because that’s what you do. You get people cards,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, “but what’s the point of spending four bucks on a piece of paper with some glitter, a schmaltzy verse about how much Jesus loves you, and handing it over to someone whose first inclination will be to put it in their mouth and slobber all over it?”

Seriously. Hallmark has really done a number on our society. There is a card for everything. And I mean everything. While Emily was searching for the perfect card to give to a sack of drooling, illiterate flesh her precious niece, I browsed through the rest of the cards.

Throughout the shelves were randomly placed lavender markers with “UNIQUE NEEDS” written on them. Upon further investigation, I discovered that these were the super-specific cards that less than one out of every thousand people coming into the store would ever need. There were flowery cards wishing your boss a speedy recovery from his surgery, brightly colored cards celebrating a child’s successful potty training, religious cards celebrating a priest’s retirement, and rather plain cards celebrating the birthday of an accountant. I am not even kidding.

And then it got a little more ridiculous. There were an alarming number of cards for owners of pets. There were cards wishing a speedy recovery to a pet after surgery, cards congratulating people on having kittens, and my personal favorite, a surprisingly large number of sympathy cards for people whose pets have just died. And that’s when I started giggling.

Giggling right in front of the purple placard that said, “LOSS OF PET.” Which is where Emily found me.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. I handed her a card, and she began to read the contents aloud:

(cover)
Dogs
Have a way of teaching us
About love,
Loyalty, joy
And
Friendship.

(inside)
The gifts you dog gave you…
Happiness, companionship,
Unconditional love…
Will never leave you.
I’m so sorry for your loss.

“Oh dear god,” she said. “Really? You think this is funny?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I’m not saying losing a pet is funny, but I am saying that the fact that there’s such a wide selection of cards for people who have lost pets is kind of funny.

And then I showed her the potty training card.

“Oh my god!” she said. “That’s ridiculous!”

So I bought the potty training card, and we made plans for another date.

TO BE CONTINUED…