I have a wedding anniversary coming up in a few days. So, like a good little husband, I bought chocolate and flowers. And then I went looking for a card. And what a miserable damned experience that was.

I went browsing through the cards, looking for something genuine. Something from the heart, something that I might have written myself. Smartassed, but sweet. Old and bitter, but not in a bad way. Lazy, shiftless, virtually unemployable, unshaven, unkempt, and covered in Chee-to dust, but lovable. And horny. Very, very horny. That's the angle I was shooting for.

But is that the sort of card I found? Decidedly not. Because, as we married men well know, there are only two kinds of anniversary cards that a loving hubby can choose from. The first type is for the dead serious Bible-thumping crowd. They've got pictures with rays of light shining through stormclouds or faded roses in grandma vases, with fancy borders and squiggly flourishes on the lettering. And inside, they say things like:

'My dearest beloved --

As we prepare to celebrate the sacred covenant we share, I swear, as diapered-up baby Jesus is my witness, I shall love you Until the very end of time itself. Or until armageddon, if it be God's will And then all bets are off, so sayeth the Lord. Blessed be our matrimonial bed,

Your husband.'

Now, I can't give that card to my wife. Not with a straight face, anyway. Yes, I was looking for a 'funny card', but not that kind of funny. And if she didn't realize that it's meant ironically, it'd scare the diapered-up baby Jesus out of her. So those cards were no good to me.

The other kind of card may be even worse. Sure, they're meant to be funny and playful, but instead they're simply ridiculous. They're filled with smarmy cartoon pictures of dogs or bears or reticulated lemurs of some kind, and they represent the happy couple doing crap that the wife and I never do -- taking long walks, going to the theater, hiking together... yeah, right.

Who does those things? Hiking? Hallmark, please. I get winded fishing the last bit of Cherry Garcia out of the Ben and Jerry's carton. Like I'm going to walk up a mountain, just for fun. You greeting card people are out of your envelopes.

Worse than that, though, is the poem that inevitably accompanies the silly pictures. It's always hacky and sappy and completely inappropriate. I'm not handing my wife something that reads:

'Honey, we've been through thick and through thin;
We'll get in the car and we'll go for a spin!

You stick by me, with all of my flaws --
And unlike our remote, our love has no 'pause'!

When I first met you, dear, I couldn't fathom my luck,
And now that we're hitched, well, I guess that you're stuck!

We've made it together, through one more year;
'Cause we're a great couple, and you're a peach, dear!

And through all of this, we're doing just fine --
Because I'm always yours, and you're always mine!'

I love my wife dearly, but that's just stupid. Nobody talks like that -- not to their wife, not to their husband, not to their drooling baby childlets. It'd make the Cleavers nauseous.

But, I had to have a card, and the religious ones were just not right, so I did the best I could. I actually bought the card I just described, and took a few... creative liberties. It's still not quite what I was looking for, but my version's a vast improvement. Here's the revised text:

'Honey, we've been through thick and through thin;
We'll get in the car and we'll go for a spin!
'Cause I don't pinch other chicks, and you don't chase other men!

You stick by me, with all of my flaws --
And unlike our remote, our love has no 'pause'!
But I'm not spending Christmas with the jackass in-laws!

When I first met you, dear, I couldn't fathom my luck,
And now that we're hitched, well, I guess that you're stuck!
family site!>

We've made it together, through one more year;
'Cause we're a great couple, and you're a peach, dear!
Now you put on a teddy, and I'll grab the beer!

And through all of this, we're doing just fine --
Because I'm always yours, and you're always mine!
Now drop those pants, babe; let's do sixty-nine!'

Much better. I am so getting some action on my anniversary now. I may not even need the chocolate and flowers. See what happens when you 'care enough to send the very best'?