How to buy a birthday card

There are two ways to buy a birthday card.

There is the guy's way. You run into the 7-11 on the way to the birthday party and grab one of those generic picture cards with a couple of kittens on the front and no Hallmarky crap written on the inside. These have the benefit of being reasonably priced, and you're in and out of the store in 30 seconds.

Then you spend another 30 seconds writing some sentimental crap like "happy 95th Auntie Millie; hope I'm half as vibrant as you when I'm 95!"

You slap a few x's and o's on there and you're good to go. Total elapsed time, about a minute.

Then there's the girls way. You "shop" for a card. That means you go to the Hallmark store at the mall and read every card. After you've read every card you pick the "best" one. That can take hours. You may even have to check out multiple stores to find the "right" card.

And good luck finding a decent card for under five bucks, which not that long ago used to be a reasonable budget for a birthday present, nevermind a birthday card.

Then, because you want your card to have a "personal" touch, you have to add a personal salutation to the perfectly adequate Hallmark salutation.

There's umpteen more hours. You may even have to do a rough draft of your personal greeting, and then have it vetted by close friends or your significant other, which can stretch this process out into days.

And since 95 year old Auntie hasn't remembered your name since 1987, it really doesn't matter which way you go...

But if you've got other things to do, go for saving time.