I am SUCH a Snob.

Doesn't anybody pay attention to etiquette anymore? I myself happen to own a copy of "Miss Manners' Guide to..." well, to something. And it's probably a 1973 printing or something that I found at the used bookstore and picked up for a laugh. I guess that's beside the point. I just received in the mail an invite to a baby shower for a couple with whom I am just barely acquainted. The father-to-be is the son of a friend of my dad, and I scarcely know him, let alone like him. Not to mention the aforementioned soiree is in some remote area of Mississippi and it just goes without saying that I won't attend, therefore making it so blatantly clear that the invite is not so much an invite as a gift request. Especially since the envelope contained not only a first-grade-birthday-party-style Precious Moments invitation, but a bar-code bearing printout declaring that the couple had the frugal good sense to register at Wal-Mart.

What? No shipping address?


I guess this makes me pretty awful. I know that gift registries are so totally the norm, but they just rub me the wrong way. If I really wanted to skip the sincere, thoughtful act of actually selecting a gift for you (rather than just shelling out the cash for something you'd already picked out for yourself) I'd just buy you a gift card. I'm not crazy about those either, but they're not entirely outside my realm of appropriate gift-giving. The sad part is, if they'd just sent an announcement that they were expecting, I'd probably be touched that they thought of me and eager to start knitting them a gift (shower or not - I heart knitting baby things!). Instead I'm annoyed and resentful. Argh.