When You Care Enough To Send The Very Best

Grace and I went to Target yesterday to buy a birthday present.  We were browsing the card section where I was trying to explain to Grace why we couldn’t buy a Hello Kitty or Barbie card for a little boy.  “But he would LOOOOVE Hello Kitty, Mama!”  This is harder to explain than you might think.  On one hand, I’m telling her that boys don’t want cute kitty cats…on the other hand I’m contradicting my often vocalized opinion that men who like (or at least tolerate) cats make better husbands.  It’s a valid theory.

Anyway, there must be something about me that invites total strangers to talk to me.  Today it was an elderly woman who asked me to help her pick out a birthday card.  She had selected several and was having difficulty choosing the best one for her 15-yr-old grandson. 

I stifled a grin as I noticed that most of the cards contained flowers, glitter, curly embellishments, or pastel colors.  “You’re buying this for your grandson?” I inquired again.  “Yes,” she said.  “They’re all so nice I just can’t pick!”  I decided to be honest.  “Well,” I said, “They’re really pretty cards, but I’m not sure that a teenage boy would like them.”  Grandma looked at me sorrowfully. 

“Have you looked in the blue section that says ‘His Birthday’?”  I asked.  [She had been looking in the general birthday section.]  I led her down the aisle and showed her the “grandson” section.  She didn’t look too excited although she thanked me kindly.

I went back to the kid’s section and finalized our card choice with Grace.  I noticed that Grandma, after looking at the masculine cards for less than a minute, moved back to the “pretty” section.  Based on what she was holding when I bid her a good afternoon, I hope that her grandson likes garden scenes.