First the Wrong Vodka…

Artist: Jim Coughenour

When asked what my favorite hobbies are, invariably I reply running, playing bridge, reading, or grabbing a pint of beer. It dawned on me the other day, that browsing through card shops is really one of my favorite hobbies, although I expect few people consider it a hobby.

The first card store I remember was Lee’s Pharmacy in Zumbrota, it sold Hallmark cards. Grandma Swee brought me there when I was pretty young. I didn’t see the big deal. Pastel colored paper with loads of script and words and all of the cards had a sickly floral smell. I was not impressed. It had to have been when I was thirteen or fourteen when on a family outing to the Apache Mall in Rochester, I discovered Cardvaarks, a shop full of irreverent cards of all shapes and sizes. Thus began my addiction.

Amongst the brightly-colored “Lordy, You’re 40!” balloons and the lava lamps in the windows, were racks and racks of cards that would make my mother blush. It was fantastic. There were the silly, the rude and of course the nude. I saw my first naked-man birthday card and was quite tempted to slip it into my bag. I was sure that someone I knew would appreciate it. I spent countless hours at Cardvaarks, memorizing the pictures and the text, taking the time to figure out just who a card would be appropriate for.

I bought stacks of cards. Birthday, Christmas, occasional, thank you, and even romantic ones. Each had to have a striking image or at least a catchy quip. While Hallmark cards generally hovered around 75¢, Cardvaarks got away with charging $1.50 or more, but when I had my heart set on the perfect card, no expense could be spared.

Over the years I’ve sent countless cards. Postcards from Spain, birthday cards to my Aunt back in Zumbrota, and of course mother’s day and father’s day cards from wherever my hat has been. Christmas always gets me. It’s a great time to play catch up with old friends, though I’m not a big fan of the generic Christmas letter. My aunt Mary Jane used to send a mimeographed letter to everyone back in the 70′s sharing what each family member had been up to, with each person carefully described in third person, including the author herself. It defied reason when I read what “Mary Jane” had been up to.

As the antithesis to the catch-all letter, for a number of years in the nineties, I made my own cards. Yes, it was a budget production, but I had a lot of fun. My favorite one was made from a stamp of Joan Crawford screaming in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. I cut out a little red hat from construction paper, pasted that and a little bit of cotton ball to make a little Santa hat on top. I remember constructing the cards on a flight from Seattle to Minneapolis. It was back in the day when you could carry a scissors and glue on a plane without being flagged as a prime terrorist suspect. I was seated in a middle seat next to a mother and her four-year-old son. He was restless and loud, but when I pulled out the cards and started making stuff, he was mesmerized and wanted to make cards too. I quickly set the tyke and his nimble fingers to work, pasting hats on Screaming Joan and I’d then put the finishing touch of cotton on afterwards. It was a lot of fun, and he remained a content and quiet travel companion for the duration of the flight.

Much like cards, flying too has been a fascination of mine. When I finished university, I had a brief stint as a flight attendant for the newly defunct Northwest Airlines. It was when I was working for Northwest that I came across the First the Wrong Vodka card. It was out of control funny. I read it over and over and mused about it for weeks. I bought it without a recipient in mind and probably even intended to keep it myself. Then one day, someone must have seemed important enough to send it to and poof! it was gone. Gone but not forgotten.

Do you ever have those moments when you regret giving something up? Perhaps it was a mixed tape that you really loved but gave it away during a fleeting romance, but forgot to write down the playlist. Maybe it was a sweatshirt that you lent to a friend of a friend at a summer’s eve picnic and which you know you’ll never see again. For me, parting with that card, had to be one of those regrets. In fact, it had such an impact on my sense of humor at the time, I still recall precisely when and where I bought it. It was autumn 1992. I was back in Minnesota on a layover from Seattle and nipped into a card shop in Uptown (Minneapolis) to get a sympathy card for a friend’s grandmother. She was on life support, but I knew her days were numbered and it was the only chance I’d have to get the card, with my travel and all. After spending an inordinate amount of time poring over the entire shop, I got the sympathy card, but then saw Jennifer.The tipping cocktail glass, the flying olive, the thoroughly messed up passengers, and then Jennifer. Bitter, unshaken and seething, she faces death with the same disdain as she probably would give a man who sneezes too loudly or a girl whose skirt is a bit too short.

For months, I sat on the card. I brought it back to Seattle and sat on it, waiting for the right recipient. To be honest, I really don’t recall who got it in the end. Probably someone who thought it was funny, albeit highly inappropriate. They probably sniggered for a moment and then after a few days, chucked it into the garbage can. At the same time, they probably did get some gratification from it, but most likely, once it was gone, they forgot about it.

One of the greatest things about the Internet is finding stuff. Really, you can use it to find useful and absolutely frivolous things. People search for movies, restaurants, cars, computers, husbands, wives, porn and friends on the Internet. I use the Internet to find cards.

A few years ago, I did a search for “first the wrong vodka, now this” and nothing happened. Then a year later I did the same search and still nothing came up. On Monday this week, just before bed, I typed in those six memorable words. I was amazed. A blogger in Portland, Oregon quoted the card as part of his blog, and to my delight, the artist himself had commented on the blogger’s post. I followed the link to the site of my new hero, Jim Coughenour.

Visiting Jim’s site, I found countless images that made me smile, but Jennifer was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, however, there was an email button. I sent him an email and miraculously the next day received a reply, with a full resolution TIFF image. Without question, the highlight of my week.

While sorting through a few odds and ends this week, I also came across another of my favorite cards, this time one I didn’t part with. The third and final card that remains clearly embedded in my mind is one with the phrase SNAWW, an acronym for “She’s Not a Well Woman.” If anyone comes across that card, let me know!