April
4, 2022
Greetings
from the repentant,
Recently
I committed a crime. For those of you in
law enforcement, this is not confession, because the crime no longer exists. So, this is not as much a confession as a
digression.
For
a while it was hard to find good birthday cards because of supply chain shortages,
which before I go further, can we stop using that excuse for everything? It’s
hard to understand how making syrupy rhymes or awful Dad jokes and scrawling
them on paper could be affected by a bottleneck of shipping containers from
China. But I digress.
Nevertheless,
(a strange word if you split it into its original three words, which doesn’t
help the literal meaning) for a while during the pandemic (late apologies here
for the previous digression) there was a shortage of greeting cards (also a
strange term because practically no one sends ‘Greetings’ other than on this
page) so I often was forced to send ‘Happy Bat mitzvah’ instead of condolence
cards, leading to awkward moments at the viewing.
Allow
me also to say, parenthetically, that I find the overuse of parentheses
annoying. (Very sorry for this
digression, and the regrettable use of parentheses, although it’s refreshing to
see them used other than as part of emoticons.)
(Sorry about the digression in the middle of that last parenthetic
apology.)
Not
long ago there was a slew of birthdays, some of which I caused, in a sense, and
so it became necessary to purchase several birthday cards, which ordinarily I am
very good at. However, due to the
recent shortage of cards, which has been over-corrected by flooding the shelves
with poor quality greetings in all categories, including bat mitzvah
congratulations, I stood frustrated in front of thousands of cards whose
messages did not fit the spirit I intended.
I
made my selections, and then unmade them because I refused to stand in the long
lines which were caused by the self-serve checkout machines being broken, which
were put into use because of the lack of people willing to do this job, due, somehow,
to supply chain shortages. Ach.
Being
the determined (and somewhat neurotic) person, I am, I went to another nearly
identical store and found the exact cards I chose at the first store. This time the selection was easier because of
my previous research and because my standards had eroded to an all time
low. Thankfully the store was staffed by
much more dedicated machines than the first store and I swept through the
purchase process and was on my way home in no time.
Displaying
the cards on my kitchen counter I realized that I had inadvertently stolen a
birthday card. I use the word ‘inadvertently’
here because it seems appropriate, and probably will be helpful later if there
is a trial, but in truth I don’t like the term because when you split it apart
it doesn’t make any sense. We never say
we did something ‘advertently’. (Forgive
me for this inadvertent digression.)
As
you know, in most circumstances stealing a birthday card is a felony, because
they are valued at approximately the same as a brick of gold, the price of
which has skyrocketed due to supply chain shortages. However, in addition to all of my other
charming attributes, I am also obsessively parsimonious. So, it happens I stole something of almost no
value. (Allow me to say here that whoever receives one of these carefully
curated selections from me, that the price is not reflective of my
feelings. You can’t put a price on a
happy bat mitzvah.) (And by the way, are
you one of those people who flips the card over to see what the price was?)
Because
I am typically a law-abiding person, (other than when I disagree with the IRS,
speed limit signs, and that silly rule about public urination) I decided to return
the stolen card. And then I pictured
standing in a long line at the ironically named customer service desk, and then
explaining to the surly person there about shoplifting this card, and then having
to explain it to his surly supervisor, and perhaps the authorities. And perhaps to some cynical judge who wonders
how in the heck he always gets these ridiculous cases, and this time he’s going
to make an example of the criminal.
And
so, I decided to un-steal the card instead.
I hid it inside my shirt, and then made my way back into the store. I swear
I was sweating as I did this, afraid I would get caught not stealing this card,
which by the way was NOT funny enough to steal.
I somehow made it past the intensive security (“Welcome to Meijer!!”),
and to the card kiosks, which for some reason were crowded with shoppers, and I
did not want any witnesses to this ridiculous caper. Using my criminal wits, (Criminal Wits would
be a great name for a rock band) I went to the nearby magazine department and borrowed
a copy of ‘Cat Fancier’ and secreted the card inside its pages.
I
returned to the card kiosk, and with sly stealth managed to slip the card back out
of the magazine and into its correct place on the shelf. None of the other shoppers noticed, I’m sure,
as they were caught up in the hysterical frenzy of staring at pieces of paper
with mediocre platitudes. (Mediocre Platitudes is also a great name for a rock
band.)
I
make no apologies about this adventure. (Other than to Dave Berry, who I once
met in a bar in Philadelphia.) (Oh, and
to whoever bought that issue of ‘Cat Fancier’.)
After all, I feel as though I took appropriate action to reverse my
crime. Philosophically this aligns with
the question about the tree falling in the forest. By the way, the reason for the supply chain
shortage of greeting cards could be related to the number of trees that fall in
the forest when no one is around to hear them.
Sorry
about that digression.
Hope
this finds you innocent,
David
Copyright
© 2022 David Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment