A Message from the 17-Year-Old Romantic Greeting Card I’ve Never Had Anyone To Give To

Target store, April 2003, is when Megan plucked me out of obscurity, quite literally. Actually, if I recall it correctly, it was her mother who selected me from the greeting card slots.

“This is such a cute one,” she said to Megan. And admittedly I was. A sepia-toned photo of two little kids on glossy matte, one boy and one girl, standing in the ocean together.

Megan read my inscription over her mother’s shoulder. “I waded my whole life for you. That is cute.”

“You should buy it,” Megan’s mother said.

Rejoice! My first true prospective customer, and I was already going home with them, to bring someone else joy — Megan’s person. I never thought it would be this easy. But then Megan’s mother continued.

“Save it for someone special,” she said.

Oh. So Megan was single? She didn’t have anyone in particular for me. My training at the American Greetings factory months prior had not prepared me for this scenario. There wasn’t a class on customers buying cards for someone who didn’t exist. We were trained for the sheer purpose of being given to someone specific, someone you loved and cared about, in my case, romantically.