Did You Get My Invitation to My Child's Graduation?

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So there I was at my high school graduation ceremony, sitting on stage with my fellow classmates. We sat there in raptured excitement, identically dressed in our blue caps and gowns as the commencement speaker told us how individuality is the key to success. After many years of living in this post-high school world, I'm not sure whose success he was talking about. Still, I do know that uncommon individuality will make you stick out especially in a crowd of mediocrity.

And crowded is what my mailbox has become lately. I don't remember my graduation from high school being so complicated or expensive. Yet, as soon as my child reached her senior year, the school seems to have notified every marketer in the graduation industry. It's a rare day now that my mailbox doesn't have the latest promotions on caps and gowns, or expensive offerings by local photographers wanting to capture your 12th-grader's once-in-a-lifetime look, or flyers pushing overpriced guilt in the form of school rings and other memorabilia. I know my darling senior is doing all she can to get loans for the brave new world of college partying and crappy jobs. As for me, I seem to be doing all I can to secure loans just to get her graduated.

Not all the mailings have been dismal. I was fortunate enough to get an impressive packet of info from Pear Tree Greetings. When I opened the envelope and handled the top grade card stock of invitations, announcements, and graduation cards, I thought I was having a senior moment of my own (memory, not youth). These invitations weren't like the other companies' flimsy papers that barely survived the handlers of the United States Postal Service. Paper Tree's material was such good quality that it left me wondering if I had already placed an order. But I had not because, after I visited their website, I know I would have remembered their unforgettably inexpensive prices. Besides, it was someone elses good looking kids in these graduation ensembles.

In fact, the only sad part as I looked through offerings from Pear Tree Greetings were the models that they used in the samples. It's not that they used substandard folks as high-schoolers. On the contrary, these kids look like the ones that would be actresses and future politicians. No, the problem is my little sweetie. In the right light, you would say she is cute -- as long as it is night time and the lights were off. The only way she could almost get a date for the Sadie Hawkins dance was by wearing a Nintendo DS for her corsage and a couple of Xbox controllers around her neck. Pear Tree Greetings does have photo editing capabilities. But in my case, I would have had to recommend that their soft lighting be more along the lines of a thick early-morning fog bank - just shadows with a slight hint of features.

But don't worry. I won't be sending you an invitation. You'll thank me but please send cash instead.