Untouched by Hallmark

One of the first tasks we had to address upon arriving in Hermosillo was to get a 40th birthday card for our brother-in-law. (For once, I actually planned ahead better than Natalie as I bought my Dad's birthday card in the States and left it at home to make sure it would get there on time.)

We stopped at a Wal Mart thinking it is an American chain, so it probably has everything American Wal Mart's have. And there indeed was a greeting card section, but the organization is, well, different. There were four types of envelopes - pink medium and pink large and blue medium and blue large. And they were all over the place.

The card selection itself was sparse, mixed up and generally poor. Cards had smudges and corners were tattered. We settled for a few blank inside cards, though we might have been better off making something at home. People should be expecting e-cards from us in the future.

Though we did find that the Sears here does have a much better card selection. Sears is a department store here - something between Kohl's and Macy's.

Natalie had more luck finding a card.

But alas, I'm not cable of driving to Sears by myself yet, so I had to turn to the slightly-better-than-Wal Mart selection at one of our grocery stores to get a card for our anniversary, which is today. Sadly, I couldn't find card and flowers on the list of year-appropriate anniversary gifts, but we just got back from Mexico City and spent a considerable amount on an obsidian Aztec God bust; plus it is just too hard for me to shop here right now.

I planned ahead to cover the month of August, but I should have bought cards to cover the rest of the year before coming to Hermosillo. Surprise, surprise, all of the cards are in Spanish.

Fortunately, I've been here long enough to know some words. For example, I know what Happy Birthday looks like, so I was able to eliminate them, though I did have my eyes on a couple that looked appropriate (they were flowery) if I couldn't find anything else. But then I saw the keeper - one that said Love on the front. I skimmed for familiar words in the inside to make sure I didn't find concubina or something else offensive when I came across "congratulations." A wedding card, apparently (later confirmed), but close enough. And other than that final word, everything else was very much appropriate for an anniversary.

Seriously, would you buy Hallmark cards,
if you knew this guy founded the chain?

From the best I can tell, Hermosillo, and possibly the rest of Mexico, has not embraced the greeting card. Apparently Joyce Hall and his brood do not have this country's male population by the balls like they do in America.

But alas, there is some expectation to have cards for some events, so the next time we work our way north to Tucson, I'll be card-loading to get me through 2011.