i know we haven't always seen eye to eye

not the actual card, but same idea.

April has drawn to a close and what I call “Card buying season” has begun.  This is the three month period  from May to July.  During this time there is: Mothers Day, Father’s Day, eight birthdays, and Jaime and I’s anniversary.  I need to buy cards for each of these occasions.

I’m not the first to point out that buying greeting cards is an odd experience.  They contain pictures, messages, and meanings that we should be conveying ourselves but instead we leave this up to some underpaid copywriter at Hallmark.

It occurred to me at some point that the Greeting Card industry has become so homogenized that every birthday, holiday, or one of a hundred other special occasions have the same twenty four cards.  With so few in circulation the ability to be original has diminished, and the chances that you might get some the same card as someone else is not unlikely.

To combat this I would go in search of cards inappropriate for the occasion.  Daughter to mother for Mother’s Day, Grandson to Grand father for my dad on Father’s Day.  My personal favorite was to buy birthday cards for the wrong age.  Nothing could please me more than to watch an adult open a Spongebob or Dora the Explorer card.  Likewise I would giggle incessantly as little kids opened tasteful cards with big loopy cursive letters celebrating Grandma’s 93rd Birthday.

I did this for years thinking that I was being terribly original.  At least up until about five years ago when I witnessed an exchange take place in a store.

In college Jaime worked two stints at Papyrus stationary store.  While waiting for her to get off work one day I watched two frat boys walk in.  I’m a judgmental person and immediately began to mentally ridicule their backwards hats, novelty t-shirts, and those True Religion jeans that they might was well just call Dousche.

I was trying to keep my distance when I overheard one of them say, “Hey, you know what I like to do?”  He laughed like a hyena, “I like to buy cards for people for the wrong age.  It’s hilarious.”  He said this like his idea was genius, forget the Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, or Richard Pryor, this guy was breaking new comedy ground with his card idea.

I silently mocked him before I realized that I was guilty of the exact same thing.  Shame overtook me and if I and that guy found the same stupid jokes funny, then I couldn’t do them anymore.  I quit cold turkey.

Later that same year however, I found myself driving down to my Dad’s house realizing I forgot to get him a Father’s day card.  I pulled into Safeway and walked up and down the card aisle.

They had been picked clean.  This was not a matter of finding the right card, but of finding any card at all.  There were two left, one generic that said simply, “Dad, you’re the greatest!  Happy Father’s Day.”  This is fine if you have nothing else to give, but there was one other card on the shelf, one that caught my eye.

On the front of the card was a picture of a father and son fishing at the edge of a serene lake.  It read, “Dad, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye.... But I love you.  Happy Father’s Day.”  I immediately knew which card to buy.  This was genius, I cracked a huge smile in the aisle just picturing the type of person who seriously buys this card.

A man in his 30’s or 40’s with a wife and kids.  He and his father have had a rough relationship and now he spends his time in therapy.  He’s an emotional guy though and can’t not get his dad a card.  The “You’re the greatest,” card is out of the question.  He considers something humorous but knows that to give this would only ignore their past history.  Then he comes across this card, it conveys everything a card for a father and son in their situation should convey.  He buys it.

I waited with excited anticipation the entire night for my dad to open the card.  After he tore open the envelope and slid the card out there was a moment of confusion, then he lightly chuckled.  The enormous grin on my face melted.  I was a comedian bombing on stage at a night club, the audience was just too polite and chuckled accordingly.

I wrote the card off as a failure that just didn’t have the comic absurdity I was aiming for.  Instead it said, “Sorry Dad, I waited till the last minute and this was the only card left.”

Afterwards my dad seemed a little bothered, not depressed, but confused.  When dinner was over he and I sat by ourselves at the table.  I watched as he picked up the card again and carefully read the front then the inside.  “So I don’t understand,” he said to me.  “Is this how you feel?”

I was not a comedian bombing, I was performing an act, only the audience wasn’t sure if I meant what I was saying or not.  They tried to play along but really they didn’t get the joke at all.

The night was awkward, had I to do it all over again I would have bought the generic card and looked plain and not clever or funny.  Since that day I have not bought inappropriate cards, between the frat boy and an uncomfortable Father’s Day I decided to play it safe.  If I bought the same card as someone else, oh well, it appears that most people prefer the comedy of a Hallmark writer than mine.

posted by brian snider