Aunt Marge Buys the Farm

This is about greeting cards, sympathy cards in particular. Greeting cards are made for women to send to each other. The thank you card for instance. Someone has done something nice for me, gone out of their way and I want to send them a thank you card. Every last one of them is decorated with unicorns, kitties, or flowers - no way I am going to send oneof those San Francisco boutique specials to another guy. The sympathy cards are even worse.

They have a sappy little poem, some religious claptrap, or the standard “With Sympathy” - rather impersonal if you ask me.

This all started when one my friend’s Aunt Marge died. Marge is just a fictitious name; it just seems like someone named Marge would welcome the reaper just to be rid of that name. Advance apologies to any Marges out there – here’s a tip, sue you parents and use the money to get that name change. Any rate, I don’t know her and now the moment has passed. My options are limited so I generally go for the blank card. This is a good tack in one sense as long as you avoid cards with clowns or jokes on the front. No one wants to read a “Farside” cartoon with Marge starting up at him or her from her brand new satin lined box. I can usually find a card that has something tasteful on the front, not some flowery piece of crap. On the downside, now I have to write something.

What to do you write? “I know how you feel” or “I share the sorrow over your loss” won’t cut it – you didn’t know Aunt Marge and you can’t know what the bereaved is feeling. Hell, he may have though she was the Wicked Witch from the East-Northeast and for all you know, he may want to do the River-dance on Marge’s new mound, or he may have had some deep feelings - there is no way for you to tell.

“You are in my prayers” – prayers are a little late to help aunty, and I have gone beyond looking up to the sky and wishing for shit, you might as well play the lottery because there is a remote (extremely remote) chance of a payoff. Another lame inscription is “Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.” That would work if you could dig his aunt up and breathe life back into her, but beyond that I doubt there is much you could do for the dude aside from handing him another Kleenex or joining him in an impromptu clog dance on the grave.

I often go with the “My thoughts are with you”. It isn’t a lie, I shopped for the card and am trying to think what to write beyond “Sorry about your dead aunt,” so in effect my thoughts are with them. It is a safe statement; you haven’t given your heart away, spread any greeting card schlock, or shown any curiosity as to what happened to Marge – toaster in the bathtub, trip down the stairs, eaten by her 47 cats, or just plain bad luck.

Hope this helps in some small way the next time someone you know makes the final payment on the farm. Finally, homemade cards probably wouldn’t be a good idea, especially if there are crayons and construction paper involved - sometimes it doesn’t pay to go cheap.