Happy pre-Mother's Day

I love pre-Mother's Day Saturday in card shops. A raft of young men looking around with bewildered faces trying to ascertain whether mum would like a personalised Mother's Day message from Cliff Richard or Daniel O'Donnell.

Hint: neither.

(Unless she's like that lady who always wanted 4 slices of corned beef from the deli counter - back in the day I was forced to slice cold meat for a living - and wore a t-shirt, jacket, and locket with Daniel O'Donnell's face plastered all over it. I think she would like a personalised Daniel O'Donnell Mother's Day if she is in fact 'your mum'. In which case, you win. At everything).

Having said that I did get my mum a Cliff Richard card because, come on, it's a Cliff Richard card (she enjoys a healthy dose of irony rather than in-the-closet tennis fans, just so we're clear) but that's neither here nor there.

But my point is, the men. Oh the men. How they dawdle and gape and trail along the Mother's Day cards aisle looking like their soul is broken. How they stand stock still holding a card in their hands and looking like they might cry trying to decide if this is the one.

They look an awful like me whenever I have to choose a card for someone. Except I come from the school of 'that'll do'. I find a half-way decent representation of my feelings of love and respect for another human being
with like, a kitten wearing a hat with the words 'Happy Birthday' written in pink glitter on it (or something with Cliff Richard) and I'm done. All the cards have pink on them (all mum's like pink, this is science) and they all say 'Happy Mother's Day!'. Pick one. They are all ostensibly the same. There is another type of person however, my opposite, the type who has to spend an hour looking at every single card in the shop at least twice before deciding on the original card that they picked up and when asked your opinion originally you foolishly replied 'Yeah that's alright'. 'Yeah that's alright' isn't an acceptable answer for some. They are searching for perfection. In Clintons. (Hint: I don't know for sure that perfection exists but if it does then it's not in Clintons). I have trailed along getting increasingly irate at the 'Bewitched on Pan Pipes' music they play to soothe the customers into the dead-eyed coma of card industry capitalism and, on the third time of being asked 'what do you think of this card?', well into the fifth hour of card shopping, screaming 'IT'S PERFECT' and having that person go 'I guess it's alright' and then them buying it. Yes. This has happened. (It's ok, the memories are fading. I no longer wake up in cold sweats about it anymore.)

But this is the type that Mother's Day seem to bring out. Is it just the Freud blah blah Oedipus blah blah that makes guys that wouldn't normally spend more than 7 minutes of their week thinking about anything that didn't benefit themselves positively in some way, happy to spend 18 hours in Clintons finding the perfect card for their mommy dearest?

BOOM. You've just been psychologied.

I will say I'm glad I had a quick look around else I'd have missed the High School Musical themed Mother's day card. It's nice that the mothers-by-13 market hasn't gone unexploited. It makes me happy to be alive.