{"id":11302,"date":"2012-06-25T12:01:17","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T16:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11302"},"modified":"2012-06-25T12:01:17","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T16:01:17","slug":"this-year-hallmark-hands-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/this-year-hallmark-hands-down\/","title":{"rendered":"This Year, Hallmark &#8212; Hands Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/birthdaycard.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Favorite birthday card of 2012\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/birthdaycard_sm.jpg?resize=600%2C592&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"592\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Saying something like &#8220;This was my favorite birthday card this year&#8221; is a little like announcing you have a favorite son or daughter from among all your children. It seems like something one doesn&#8217;t do in polite company &#8212; certainly not in a public forum where family injuries may ensue.<\/p>\n<p>Still&#8230; The message printed inside this card caught me completely by surprise; my younger sister, who sent it to me, wrote that she &#8220;laughed [her]self silly&#8221; when she read it. I had that reaction, too.<\/p>\n<p>(One reason: this is a Hallmark card &#8212; not even from one of the off-the-mainstream product lines, like Shoebox. The punchline is completely unconventional.)<\/p>\n<p>In the spirit of\u00a0<em>The New Yorker<\/em>&#8216;s weekly cartoon contest, anyone want to guess what this card says inside? (Note especially that it&#8217;s not specifically a birthday card. It&#8217;s not specifically a card for any occasion, in fact.)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll eventually post the answer in a comment. In the meantime&#8230;?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saying something like &#8220;This was my favorite birthday card this year&#8221; is a little like announcing you have a favorite son or daughter from among all your children. It seems like something one doesn&#8217;t do in polite company &#8212; certainly not in a public forum where family injuries may ensue. Still&#8230; The message printed inside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,15,713],"tags":[2335,3069,3070],"class_list":{"0":"post-11302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-family","8":"category-humor-writing_cat","9":"tag-birthdays","10":"tag-greeting-cards","11":"tag-overturned-expectations","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-2Wi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11302"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11308,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302\/revisions\/11308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}