totally inappropriate sentiments
I don't trust myself to do the right thing. It started this week when I decided to send my aunt a care package. She's starting her first round of chemo and I wanted to send her something she could use in case the chemo knocks her on her ass for a few days. I'm sending flavored coffee, some bath stuff, and a card. But when I showed Eli the card I selected for her, he looked at me like I was insane and said, "You don't send something like that to someone who has cancer!"
This is what the card says:
(outside) Hang in there...Sometimes life hands you lemons, but then you can make lemonade.
(inside) Of course, sometimes life pulls down your pants, ruins a power sander across your naked butt, then pours lemon juice on your raw, abraded buttocks.
In that case, a cool citrus drink wouldn't really help, but darn it...you've got to hang in there anyway!
I thought it was perfect since if I were a card writer, this is the kind of message I would create. I could call my line Totally Inappropriate Sentiments and there would be cards for every occasion. Like, condolences for the affair your husband is having that you just found out about. Or, sorry your punk kid got kicked out of school again. Maybe a small note of sympathy for the person who just found out the babysitter is stealing. A whole line of cards with just the right heartfelt prose for those things that happen when nothing else you can say or do will make the situation better (washing machine breaks, cat has a virus that makes it puke up phlegmy hairballs on your rug for a week, your mother is on your ass to give her more grandchildren because she is blazingly oblivious about the round of postpartum depression you suffered after putting one little angel on this earth for her to spoil) I could even make a subdivision called The Science Series to express sympathy for a coworker who has an accident on the job. "I heard about the acid spill. Hey, at least it was only 1 Molar HCl and you won't have permanent scars!" "So sorry to hear you lost your wedding ring in the autoclave."
But that's a business plan for another day. I picked out a different card for my aunt and it is entirely appropriate and not funny at all. It has flowers on the front and inside it simply says Please feel better. And I will just have to fill it with colorful prose from my own head to make it more exciting.
But Eli planted the seed of doubt and today I can't find the words. And it's not just my aunt's card, I also found myself in possession of a fantastic postcard about cervical cancer and nothing to write on it. See, I found the postcard in a magazine and I want to send it in to Postsecret.
The card is the perfect canvas, but I'm having trouble coming up with a secret. This is not like me.
And now I know. I have card writer's block.
The scary part is I'm totally the type of person who would buy one of your cards.
Strangely enough (or maybe not - we seem to have similar waves in our lives right now), just the other day I was wondering how they hire card writers at Hallmark but I'm so rude I'd probably be too much for even the Shoebox line. So I thought maybe I should invent my own line and call them Smart Ass Sentiments. I could sell them only at Dollar stores for people who refuse to pay $6 for a card that may just get thrown out anyway, and I could make a nice small fortune.
Posted by: sherry | July 23, 2006 at 09:58 AM
When she had her second hospital stay, Joshua and I sent my MIL a card with a picture of a guy flashing a woman in the grocery store. The caption was "Oh Thank you Sonny, I just remembered I have to buy baby carrots!" or something like that. She thought it was hilarious.
And I would totally buy inappropriate sentimate cards. There used to be a shop in Chicago where you could buy stuff like "Take the L out of LOVER" on the inside "And it's OVER, Baby!"
Posted by: Amanda | July 23, 2006 at 09:01 PM