"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
07/21/2014 at 23:54 • Filed to: None
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"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit)
07/21/2014 at 23:54 • Filed to: None | 0
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Yup, I'm gonna complain about birthday cards. If we can have articles !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! I figure why not. Besides there's nothing in the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that says that everything has to be about cars, as long as it's not douche-y.
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This is especially douche-y, though.
Anyway, as I was saying...lately as I've been strolling around the neighborhood I've been finding birthday cards littering the streets. It's kind of bizarre. A water-wrinkled pastel mess stuck in the gutter with a cutesy cartoon character adorning the front with some cheerful pat cliche written on the front, and when I open it (yes, I open these things) there's always some lengthy message about growing up and getting a year older and blah blah blah from Grandpa. The latest one I found just this morning buried under a rock. Yes, buried under a rock . Not too well as I obviously found it, but it seemed strangely deliberate. As if someone decided that placing a river boulder (which despite its name is about as large as a decent universal remote control) is the perfect way to preserve a thin piece of printable board paper with high liquid absorption properties.
I've never understood birthday cards because it seemed like an impersonal way to try to sham being personal. Most people who give them out actually bother to show up in person (at least in my experience) so they often end up being self-defeating anyway. I've always felt a hand-written letter is a better, more personal option for absentee greetings too. I'll admit that greeting cards have a place though. I know I just spent a whole paragraph insulting the cloying cliches of greeting cards but many of the ones I've seen (especially lately, in the gutter) seem pretty whimsical and, well, like the artist actually spent a lot of time and dare I say it even heart on the artwork. The way I see it, greeting cards aren't necessarily trying to say "sorry I couldn't make it, here's a little piece of me in heart instead" or "sorry I'm too lazy to come by and make it, here's some words some guy wrote so I don't have to actually write anything meaningful instead" or even "here I am, take this card and the money inside, where's your dad so I can go watch the Giants pound on Romo with him." The way I see it, greeting cards are trying to memorialize and sentimentalize a special event in someone's life, or serve as a semi-permanent reminder that friends and family are there for you. That's the key right there, semi-permanent . They're not family heirlooms but the word permanent is in there for a reason. The picture and the words on the front is supposed to frame a mental image and the hand-written words on the inside remind you who the person who wrote them is.
So really, I don't know if greeting cards should be used more sparingly or if they just need more respect. I know if people suddenly adopted more stringent and seldom shopping habits for greeting cards, Hallmark would have few income sources other than pumping out more and more schlock on their network like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! but at the same time it does create a legitimate wasteful problem. On the other hand, if everybody saved every greeting card that went their way !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .
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I don't know. I guess all I want to say is, stop throwing your trash out onto the street, kids.