a southerner's predicament
One thing I find endlessly frustrating about living in (small-town) Alabama is that:
A) The educational system is the second lowest in the nation, making a large amount of people, well, uneducated.
B) Hardly anyone is Episcopalian.
There are many ( and I mean MANY) ramifications to the aforementioned points, but one of them is very simple: it is incredibly difficult to find greeting cards. "What?" You might say.
Well, take example A). If one goes to the card section of Wal-Mart(Ah! And you thought all Wal-Marts were the same!) looking for a graduation card for one's brother-in-law, who just graduated from law school, there will be one (1) card. In fact, if one is looking for any post-B.A. graduation card, there will probably be one (1). What about example B)? Well, say your friend's daughter is about to be baptized. That was the case for me recently. Today was the baptism of the nine-week-old daughter of a couple in our church. So, what did I do? I (foolishly) went to Wal-Mart for a card. There was one (1). Girls, do you know the chance that the one non-small-town-Alabama-ideology-friendly card in Wal-Mart will be the card you actually want to give that special person? Well, for me so far, it has been 0%.
So, what did I do? I bought a "normal" baby card that ended in "Congratulations" instead of "Congratulations on Your New Baby," and I added my own message to the end. I did the same thing when my brother-in-law graduated law school. And I'm sure I'll do the same thing when the next person in our church gets confirmed. What is a woman to do? It's a southerner's predicament.
Do you think that I pull this off? Or does it just look tacky? The other thing that I've discovered is that it's very hard to find a baby card without a cutsey little "poem" in it. I guess babies just bring out the cutsey in everyone. Don't get me wrong. I have no problems with cutsey-- just bad poetry.
A) The educational system is the second lowest in the nation, making a large amount of people, well, uneducated.
B) Hardly anyone is Episcopalian.
There are many ( and I mean MANY) ramifications to the aforementioned points, but one of them is very simple: it is incredibly difficult to find greeting cards. "What?" You might say.
Well, take example A). If one goes to the card section of Wal-Mart(Ah! And you thought all Wal-Marts were the same!) looking for a graduation card for one's brother-in-law, who just graduated from law school, there will be one (1) card. In fact, if one is looking for any post-B.A. graduation card, there will probably be one (1). What about example B)? Well, say your friend's daughter is about to be baptized. That was the case for me recently. Today was the baptism of the nine-week-old daughter of a couple in our church. So, what did I do? I (foolishly) went to Wal-Mart for a card. There was one (1). Girls, do you know the chance that the one non-small-town-Alabama-ideology-friendly card in Wal-Mart will be the card you actually want to give that special person? Well, for me so far, it has been 0%.
So, what did I do? I bought a "normal" baby card that ended in "Congratulations" instead of "Congratulations on Your New Baby," and I added my own message to the end. I did the same thing when my brother-in-law graduated law school. And I'm sure I'll do the same thing when the next person in our church gets confirmed. What is a woman to do? It's a southerner's predicament.
Do you think that I pull this off? Or does it just look tacky? The other thing that I've discovered is that it's very hard to find a baby card without a cutsey little "poem" in it. I guess babies just bring out the cutsey in everyone. Don't get me wrong. I have no problems with cutsey-- just bad poetry.
posted by Elizabeth at 2:28 PM
2 Comments:
You're funny.. but that's quite sad indeed. I think you definitely pulled it off and if they're local, they probably understand. :)
After you mentioned the problem to me at church I decided to check the local Christian bookstore. They don't have any baptism card at all. Pathetic.
Your card looked just fine. I'm sure Joanna was happy with it.
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