AS my wife would be the first to agree, I'm not very good at choosing greeting cards.
While other people (mostly women) can pop into a store and emerge minutes later with the perfect card for the occasion, I agonise over the right choice, going from shop to shop until I run out of time and then plump for the least gushy/least offensiv
e offering.
And it's not as if card selecton is only a Christmas or single birthday ordeal!
Whatever you think of the greetings card manufacturers, you have to hand it to them for having accomplished a successful invasion of almost every part of our lives.
Having just got over the heart-searching choice of wording for a St Valentine's Day card (I thought they were originally meant to be sent to someone who doesn't know who gave it), up comes the all-encompassing Mother's Day event, on March 22.
Everyone's jumping on board now and mums will be getting cards from all sorts of relatives, not just sons and daughters.
And don't worry, chaps, your turn comes on June 21, when Father's Day will keep the card-shop tills tinkling merrily, followed by aunts' and uncles' day on July 26 and Grandparents' Day on July 26. Oh, I've missed out St Patrick's Day on March 17.
There's plenty of cardboard greenery on display to help celebrate the luck of the Irish.
But why haven't I spotted any for St George's Day on April 23?
Pay-day
Easter, of course, is another pay-day for card manufacturers, and shops are showing big selections of holy greetings in readiness for the second weekend of April.
I wonder if the credit crunch has dented the card makers' enormous earnings? The UK branch of this industry chalked-up market sales of £1.44 billion in 2007.
They've certainly got a captive market, for a survey last June revealed that only 8.1 per cent of respondents did not, for example, buy and send birthday cards.
We're spoilt for choice in how to splash out on cards — today's society offers greater variety in how we wish to say "well done".
One doesn't just send "wedding" congratulations, there are also "partnership" options. If you run out of people to whom you send cards, then why not plonk one on the carpet saying "Merry Christmas to my cat".
Still have some money left? There are divorce/remarriage cards to send, loads of anniversary possibilities, congratulations on new baby, new home, new job, retirement, passing the driving test, examination good luck, examination success... they also all help to keep the Royal Mail from going completely bankrupt.
Could do-it-yourself be part of the answer? A work colleague has saved herself an enormous sum by making her own wedding invitation cards.
I love the thought, but I'm even worse at these things than picking up someone else's ready-made effort...
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