What the fuck was I thinking
These words come to you from the disheveled, glue-stick-smeared floor of my Seattle condominium, and from the mind of one now questioning the world, as a whole, and my place within it. And more specifically:
What is the value of Valentine’s Day cards exchanged among those not yet a part of the social economy of adulthood?
Is it acceptable to sell my nine-year-old son on Craigslist?
Fuck Star Wars’ Porgs and the marketing-minded asshole who created Porgs.
That last one didn’t even host a question mark – just, fuck that guy.
This all began two weeks ago, as my son and I traversed what felt like too much of the city’s retail establishments in search of the “very best” Valentine’s Day cards. And “What are the ‘very best’ Valentine’s Day cards?” you may be asking.
Of course you’re not asking. Because you’ve got shit to do. Meaningful shit.
Meaningful, Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-Foundation-Initiative-style shit with a purpose, and you don’t have time to battle with the mental demons of motherhood commanding you dedicate many hours and increments of fuel – carbon-based and emotional – to seeking a Star Wars’ Porg-themed card for a mass of wholly unappreciative eight- to nine-year-old half-adults.
But I digress.
Somehow the team of associate account executives at Disney in charge of identifying seasonal opportunities to economically plunder America’s parents in the post-Christmas lull forgot to produce Valentine’s Day cards showcasing Porg. How? Why? I don’t know. But what I do know, is that sometime between partaking in a chia-laced Chobani yogurt and forgetting my business maintains fifteen retainer clients, I proposed to my son we create a collection of paper-craft Porg Valentine’s cards modeled after the questionably relevant creature from the latest Star Wars film.
There are now twenty-seven Porg Valentine’s cards sitting before me. Or I think there are twenty-seven Porg Valentine’s cards, as I stopped counting sometime shortly after I apparently stopped valuing life.
And I abhor all twenty-seven-or-something of those little fuckers, with their lifeless construction papered eyes and condescending, Sharpied squiggle scowls.
I’d like to note these Porg Valentine’s Day cards are also terrible for the environment. The full troop produced what felt like enough paper waste to stock a small functional business for a quarter, or a Millennial-led startup venture for about a week or 5.7 Bitcoin – whichever comes first.
I hate them.
This brings my mind back to posed question #2 – what level of illegal is it to attempt to sell a child on Craigslist? I am asking for a friend, of course, with that friend being me as I will be the only friend I have after I begin and close this coming February 14th huddled in the corner of my once stylish home surrounded by a team of paper penguin-esque space raccoons and sincerely worried the varying shades of brown used throughout will be identified and shunned by someone among the PTA.
I didn’t want to purchase an entirely new pack of earth-toned paper stock to ensure the wings of each Porg matched the body of each Porg but now they aren’t totally identical, so fuck off.
In case you’re wondering (of course you’re not fucking wondering but let me have this one, please), the Porg Valentine’s Day cards turned out beautifully; the sort of shit that graces Pinterest boards and makes the other mothers sick with domestic envy. I expect Martha Stewart will be inviting me over for some artisanal leaf water any day now.
And still, I question if it was all worth it.
All of this shared, I know how this will cycle. Like delivering an infant via vagina, in a few months I’ll forget the hell that was Porg Valentine’s Day cards, and basking in the continued glory of positive commentary of the other mothers, I’ll begin considering V-Day 2019:
Porg – Porg riding the Millennium Falcon, bitches.
