Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990 TAG: 9006040181
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But because it was almost Memorial Day - this was before it started raining - and because my friend said she'd already gotten out all her white shoes, and what else is there to do to mark the opening of summer anyway?, I was lying out in the sun with her. The air reeked of oily coconuts and what my friend ridiculously called "our glowing skin." We were attracting flies.
"You know what I hate?" she said.
I slapped at something stinging, and gruffly asked her, "What?"
"I hate the fact that you can't get a decent Mother's Day card for a mother you don't much like."
Now there was an unexpected subject.
"I bet you can't get a Father's Day card for a father you don't like either," she said, "and that's just around the corner."
"Why . . . ?" I started to ask her. But she anticipated me.
"Well," you have to send them a card, don't you? I mean, unless they're dead. That's what Ann Landers would say if you wrote her a letter and asked."
My friend rolled over and smacked at something crawling along her arm. "I mean, all those `You were always there for me' cards and all those `Daddy, you're the greatest!' poems. What do you do if your dad was just a skunk? A real skunk? You can't get a card for that.
"And another thing," she said. "Who has time for a 12-step program these days? Why doesn't someone invent a six-step program to cure you of something in half the time? That makes a lot more sense to me."
I suggested that maybe time was a part of the cure. I suggested that maybe we'd been out in the sun long enough. She said we'd do another 20 minutes on the other side, and then we'd go have a beer. So I said, "Well, then. Back to the cards."
"Listen," she said, rising up on her elbows. "You can get cards that say, `Boy, you're over the hill now' for somebody's 40th birthday. You can get cards that say `You're fat, but good luck with your diet anyway.' I bet you can even get `Happy Divorce!' cards. But can you get a card that says `Well, it's Mother's Day and you're my mother, so I guess I have to send you a card, so here it is'? You cannot.
"It's a hole in the market, I tell you," she said. "A problem someone should address! Just like all those 12-step programs that no one has time to fool with. Come up with a six-step program, and the world will beat a path to your doorway. Come up with a noncommital card, a real plain one without sentiment, and you'll be a billionaire."
I suggested she write a letter to Hallmark.
"More people would pay attention," she said, "if I wrote Ann Landers instead."
I said she was probably right.
The next thing I knew, she was heading for the house. I called to her, "Bring insect repellant!"
She called back, "Where do you keep envelopes?"
by CNB