Anniversary Card Blues

Maybe it's my own fault for starting so late, but I the only reason I put it off was because I knew how unpleasant it would be.

The anniversary card search started yesterday online at Dayspring.com. Two pages of e-cards, but only one for spouses! Maybe they don't want to cannibalize their regular business. I would think that, particularly for the harried husband, you could provide at least a couple of options. Even if you don't make any money, there's plenty of goodwill to be gained from helping a guy celebrate his anniversary properly.

I would have gone to the Christian bookstore, but it's miles away, and after my online Dayspring experience, I wasn't sure I'd have any better luck with paper. Besides, I don't know if Dayspring even does blank cards on the inside, and through long experience that's usually what I end up with anyway.

So instead I went to Wal-mart. The last three times I've looked for cards I had limited success. I think I got two of the cheapest ones for graduations (not on purpose, just because I liked them best), a birthday of some type, and another occasion I can't remember that was unsuccessful.

I typically look at the bottom shelf of the cheaper cards, hoping to find a nice looking, appropriately generic-sounding, blank-on-the-inside card. Failing that, I drifted to the middle section where the cards were labeled anniversary, hoping that perhaps I could find something suitable.

One card had a miniature key suspended inside a heart-shaped hole, and said something like "you've had mine all along." Very sentimental, but didn't really fit how my wife & I got together.

Another card had matching underthings hanging on a clothesline (could I really make this stuff up?!) with a statement like "we go better together." Whatever.

I briefly glanced at other cards, but I wasn't going to spend an hour trolling through sappy nonsense in hopes that someone I've never met can express my feelings for my wife better than I can.

Note to greeting card companies: if anyone is listening, give us a nice looking blank card that we can write something to our wives. After being married this long, I'm pretty sure I can figure out something to say to her. I'd actually pay a premium for a card that looked nice but let me say what I'd like to say.

To my darling dearest: I told you I was going to blog about this. Here's what I wanted to say, even if I couldn't find a card to put it in:

14 years and 5 kids later, "I love you" never meant more than it does right now.