Dem Graduation Invitation Blues...

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 2005 Cordially Invites
You To Our Graduation Exercises on Saturday, June 36, 2005, 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 Roscoe Boffmeister is? 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 burping 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 punk rock
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 1986
Timex that I currently have on my wrist!