Pick A Card, Any Card

As Jane Austen almost said, “It is a truth universally occasionally acknowledged, that a marrried man in possession of a good wife, must be in want of a card”.

I went to the card shop near our house yesterday evening, and emerged defeated. Had Mrs Tin been a child of any age from 1 to 12, had she been 18, 21, 30, 50 or 107 I would have been able to buy her a birthday card.

Had her name been Anne, Sophie, or Mutter (unlikely but you never know, perhaps her parents spoke quietly at the Christening), I would have been able to get her a birthday card.

It is not, in fact, her birthday, but at least I would have had options.

This is clearly Wedding Season, as there was a huge array of really expensive cards congratulating happy couples. These range in size from ones the size of a protest placard to the ones the size of that board that Rolf Harris can get a tune out of, and seem to say “ok, we only bought you a toaster while your other friends bought you a car, but look at the size of our card compared to theirs”.

There are cards about the fact that you are sick, that you are moving home, or that you’ve got a new job. Each of these cards is basically glad that you are pissing off out of the giver’s life.

And so the list goes on. With Sympathy On The Death Of Your Goldfish. Congatulations On Running Off With The Milkman. I’m Sorry That You Became A Blogger.

As regards something as simple as a Wedding Anniversary, then unless it’s a Ruby, Diamond, Platinum or Uranium one then they seem to feel that there just isn’t a market.

In the end I went to the small grocery shop across the road, and chose a card from their selection of, well, one. It has two little birds on the front, because, as Jane says, it is a truth blah, blah, that a couple who are married will transmogrify into cute teddy bears, or puppies, or in this case what look like kingfishers.

I took the card. I didn’t look at the verse inside, for all I cared at that stage it could have said “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, trust me on this, I’m a Botanist” and I’d still have bought it.

Anyway, we are 27 years married today.

Happy Anniversary, Mrs Tin.

xxx