Cards of fortune

I’ve mentioned I don’t like surprises.  I’d rather know what’s in store and deal with it, than be broadsided by the unknown.  But predicting your future becomes harder when it appears your life is controlled by aliens living in the same house. 

Once I tried a psychic from the Yellow Pages, or was that a psycho.  My destiny from a Chinese restaurant wasn’t much better.  The fortune cookie read, “You’ll reach your goal after years and years of hard work,” while my friend’s fortune promised, “Success is just around the corner.”  I grabbed another cookie, and broke it open.  “Try Hallmark,” it suggested.

So I did.  Actually I’d searched for guidance in the aisles between Maxine and Shoebox since college.  It frightened, yet intrigued, me how the greetings came to pass.  I’d discovered a colorful card — You don’t know me, but I’m in love with the back of your head.  I bought it.  And sure enough, in front on me in chemistry class sat the most gorgeous back of a head ever. 

Unable to stay away, I found myself in Hallmark longing for clues to my soul mate.  A card with a caricature of a man in iridescent striped boxer shorts stuck up from the rest of the stack.  His bulbous body hung from a lamppost and glowed in the reflection of a lamplight.  The card’s prediction — Your Sunshine will turn up in the most unsuspected place — sounded promising.

After college, I ran into my future husband.  Literally.  Typical meeting.  Car breaks down.  Steam spurts from under the hood.  Calm girl turns off ignition in middle of the road, jumps out, and runs down the street screaming her car is on fire.  And a dashing young man comes to her rescue. 

I should have known my marriage was doomed long before I did.  It’s in the cards, I reckon.  Something about a Hallmark verse, Finding a good man is about as easy as nailing Jell-O to a tree, reappeared in my mind’s eye.

I’d found the Transformation from Four Cute Kids to Four Dancing Wienies  card when I was at my wit’s end, when the aliens invaded and moved in.  More often my life reminded me of another Hallmark card — a woman in red pants, boots, Santa hat, struggling with a long white beard.  Her fur trimmed jacket lay draped over a chair.  The caption — Single Parent Santa.

When the GAP began dating seriously, her early choices were sometimes less than stellar (remember LaundraMatt?).  A Hallmark card I bought pictured old lady Maxine saying, I heard you had a boob job.  On the inside, she had rethought and said, Or was it that you were dating a boob with no job?  Coco said I shouldn’t send it to her, but every once in a while when I needed perspective, I pulled the card out and reread it.

Just recently I again wandered the aisles of Hallmark shops searching for life’s meaning when my son asked for advice I didn’t have.  The card I found most comforting — Don’t fret about age, It comes with wisdom.  Until I opened it.  Scribbled inside, I think in the handwriting of my youngest, it read, In your case, age came alone.

Hallmark summed it all up for me in the card Hot Wheelz gave to me on my last birthday.  Being a Mom is like going to a movie — you laugh, you cry, you cover your eyes when it gets too scary, but then in the end — it turns out just the way you hoped.

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