There’s a little ritual that we all go through this time of year. It begins with the arrival of a fancy envelope in the mail, one that typically has gold bordering or fancy engraving on it. We all look at said envelope, silently groan to ourselves, and then take it on into the house, hoping as we walk inside that a big gust of wind will blow up and take the envelope out of our hands and send it over to China. That never happens, of course, so we reluctantly take the envelope inside, sit down, open it, and then read something like the following:
“The Fogerty County High School Class of 2010 Cordially Invites You To Our Graduation Exercises on Saturday, June 36, 2010, at 4 pm at Acid Reflux Stadium.”
Once read, a little business sized card drops into your hand that has a name on it like the following:
Roscoe Boffmeister
You sit there for a moment, scratch your head, and wonder just who in the devil is Roscoe Boffmeister? So you politely ask your spouse that question, and she replies,
“Remember Mary and Biff Boffmeister, the couple that lived next to us when we lived in our first house over on Sniply Drive? Back in the late eighties? Remember their cute little baby, Roscoe?”
Forgetting myself for a second, I answer honestly, “Of course, I remember little Roscoe. He cried like a tail mashed cat, drooled constantly, and was in the bathroom so much that I thought he maintained a citizenship there. To tell you the truth, I barely remember even that, didn’t they move away only a couple of months after we moved in because Biff got fired for indecent exposure at work?”
“Well, of course they did, but you do remember both Biff and Mary, and I really loved Mary. She was such a sweet person, she’d help you anyway she could.”
Again, I take the honest path, “From what I remember, Mary was okay, but all Biff ever talked about was wife swapping and he thought that farting was an art form. Sides, how can you love someone that you only knew for two months?”
A serious stare lets me know that this really was not a good question. The answer I received confirmed it, “It’s quality, Edward, not quantity. There are relatives of yours I’ve known for years that I don’t particularly like, but Mary was special.”
Seeing as how I’m bombing out like Perry Como at a heavy metal concert, I decide to get down to brass tacks, “So, what we have here is basically some blatant pandering for a graduation gift. These people, who we knew for all of two months, have managed to remember us just long enough to hit us up for a gift.”
The acid toned response I received said it all, “We get a Christmas letter from them each year telling us how well they’re doing, and they even include a picture so that we can see how fast little Roscoe is growing.”
I sagely reply, “Well, little Roscoe means nothing to me, so let’s get out as light as we can on the gift – maybe a gift box of assorted socks?”
With ice dripping off each and every word, she frozenly replies, “Edward, my God, that’s so crass, we will certainly do better than that for little Roscoe. I was thinking maybe we’d give him a subscription to the Wall Street Journal – he‘s going to take business in college, you know.”
“Hell, I don’t even get the Wall Street Journal! And this little two month old drooler will?”
At this point, I size up her facial expression and figure that shutting up and quietly absorbing my impending financial wound was best. So, I slunk off into the den, pulled out my Stevie Ray Vaughan biography, plopped down into a chair, and started reading. And one thing I discovered about Stevie Ray while reading about his life made me smile – we all know he was a great guitar player, we all know he was a great performer, but one of the best things about Stevie Ray was that he never graduated from high school, which means that he didn’t force a bunch of his distant friends and relatives to buy him cuff links, dorm refrigerators, or watches far nicer than this 2006 Timex that I currently have on my wrist!
