Card contest.

(Hallmark would love this.)

Of my two daughters, the younger is by far the more artistic one. She gets it from her mother, of course. I can draw a straight line, but only if I use a ruler.

I have referred to her in this blog as Elizabeth (her middle name, of which she is not particularly fond). In fact, I shortened it a few times to Liz, which really drew her ire. Her real name (now that she, like her older sister, is leaving Texas for another part of the country, and no longer needs to be shielded, I guess) is Amy.

Anyway, as all of you regulars here know, I think I’m pretty clever. I say that in all humility. (I can hear Amy hooting in laughter as she reads that.) Well, she thinks she’s pretty clever too. (Trouble is; she’s right. But don’t tell her I think so.) All of that cleverness (real and assumed) manifests itself in a contest to see who can select the cleverest greeting card for birthdays, anniversaries, Fathers Day, and so on.

An example: On her birthday a few years ago I picked out a card “from both of us” that purported to be from “The Jungle Stud and his Amazon Temptress,” with appropriate cartoon drawings of a Tarzan-like male and a tiger-skin-clad beauty. Carol and I signed it and sent it to her. That’s just so far from any hint either of reality or of her perception of her staid parents that she found it hilarious.

Well, for Fathers Day this year she sent me TWO cards. The first was a nod to my tendency to come up with horrible puns. It pictured a golfer, with a question on the front asking why golfers always take an extra pair of socks when they play. The answer, on the inside, was, “In case they get a hole in one.”

Yeah, I know, that’s an OLD, OLD joke. She wrote on the envelope that I was to open that one first, since she had found it first and thought it fit her punster Dad perfectly. The other envelope indicated that she had then found this second card, and just couldn’t leave the store without it. I was to open it second.

The card itself was kinda generic. On the front were two cartoon pictures with the message:

“For Fathers Day Fun:

Some guys like to golf… (picture).

Some guys like to fish… (picture).

You’re lucky!”

On the inside is a picture of a man holding a net, wearing waders and standing in a pond. On the bank is a golf bag on a pull-cart. The caption is:

“You get to do both!”

Yeah, yeah. Ha, ha. So I hit a lot of balls into the water hazards. What’s so funny?

But then my artistic daughter added to the picture a dotted-line outline of a figure standing on the bank with the words, “Insert Mom here.” Then she added a dotted-line outline in the water in front of the man with the net and wrote, “Insert Mom’s Robo-caddy here.”

Now THAT was funny!! (Here’s the card, for those of you who just HAVE to see a picture to understand.)

If you don’t get it, read THIS POST.

Okay, Amy wins this round. But stand by for her birthday and anniversary. I’ll be conducting an in-depth search for the perfect rebuttal!

(This is for Karyn: the DotM defines “Conduct” as a descriptive term for people who don’t like heating and air conditioning vents and passages.)