Blurry Is a State of Mind

We thought our legwork was essentially complete on this specific task, but not everything went as planned. In a call from the printer, we learned that the paper had arrived, but they were having problems running the RSVP postcard through the printer. In short, the RSVPs were “95 percent good, but not perfect.” Could we confirm that we would be OK with 95 percent?

What is 95 percent? What aspect of “perfect day” is not computing? Is that like saying, “Timmy has his flatulence problem ‘mostly’ under control?” Why were we the exception to the rule? Was it OK to be almost perfect?

Clearly, our wedding was meant to be the perfect day, and you can’t be perfect when you start out at 95 percent, two months earlier. Obviously, this needed to be dealt with in person, so off Christa went. It was like driving an hour to see an accident victim whose condition was gradually deteriorating.

She hit the highway to see the innocent child we had nurtured through so many tough times, under the pressure of finding the right font, cardstock, and symbol. Our RSVP card would now be the habitual butt of jokes among the cool, professionally printed and displayed invites.

“Hey four eyes, if you had a better prescription, the world wouldn’t be so blurry,” I heard one say.

Our phone rang.

“Hi. We wanted to touch base and say the direction cards can’t be printed on two sides either. Our printer has kind of stopped really…working well,” said our not-helping-as-much helper.

Sweet Jesus. I paid you to print, not inform me of your technical hiccups along the way. I offered the printer this solution: “If it remains legible, just print it on one side.”

“Oh, I think we can do that. I’ll give that a try,” she replied.

I expected to give approval on design concepts, such as our symbol, but assumed some issues would be solved independent of me. I had to pass this along, as Christa was driving up to see them, meeting Angie there.

I did not experience the next events firsthand, so I hope I can do them justice. Christa met Angie at the print shop to view the RSVPs. They both noticed that the RSVPs were not only a bit blurry, but off-center as well. This was ascertained by the almighty resource of human vision. The retort was, “Our publishing software says it’s centered.”

“Between the software and the paper, something shifted. What is in front of me is not centered,” Christa replied.

The shop was in a state of confusion; someone was not satisfied with just good enough. They offered to order a new printer part, which would arrive in one week, and stated they would “hope for the best.” Should we dare to dream that this great task of ordering and, cross your fingers, installing a new part would fix this great blurred beast?

Upon assessing the capabilities of our newfound questionable staff, Angie advised them to outsource the printing to an actual print shop with more professional equipment, not some local with a DeskJet. Their representative was quite irate at the implication that they couldn’t handle such a simple task and backed up their position with the convincing statement: “We are a small shop. I wouldn’t even know who to call.”

“Regardless of size, it’s your job to provide us with the product and service we agreed upon,” Angie said. This seemed like such sound business sense. I wish I didn’t know where this was heading.  (The two people we dealt with previously will now be known as Crazy 1 and Crazy 2.)

So a week passed, and Angie and Christa returned to see what had become of our glorious invitations. Upon entering the establishment, Angie and Christa were accosted by Crazy 1, who stated that we were collectively making her life difficult by demanding a centered and 100 percent clear final product. We were too hard to please, and it was the printer’s fault. The last printer’s job description I read had the word “printing” in it. A true craftsman doesn’t blame her tools.

Imagine going through child labor, then having the doctor hold up your baby and say, “He’s almost 100 percent perfect. His eyes are a little bit over on the left side of his head; oh, but nothing like a flounder. His head will always be a little blurry, if you look at it closely. I don’t know what you expected. Your birth canal is only approved up to six-pound babystock.”

A few days later, we got a message from Crazy 2, the owner. She said that we couldn’t go with the red RSVP cards; they were ruining her printer. We would have to go with a less durable paper in ivory. Christa returned the call and asked whether Crazy 2 was aware of Crazy 1’s previous behavior.

She replied, “I don’t know what to say about that. We need to move on.”

She offered us the invitations at cost for our trouble. At this point, we thought we might end up mailing lined index cards with “Please come” handwritten on them. Christa couldn’t speak to them anymore; she said we’d call back and hung up the phone.

We decided to take on the job ourselves. I called them back to tell them so. This needed to be over and done with. We sent The MOB to pick up the cardstock and proofs on copy paper. The MOB was reassured by Crazy 2 with the sentence: “Christa’s just a typically stressed out bride.”

The MOB gave her a little parting shot of: “You know where it’s coming from.”

How could this behavior be anything but aggravating, especially to a bride-to-be?

Back in Cincinnati, with the RSVP cardstock in our possession, we sat down to figure out how to print the Everest of stationery. Our collective genius stewed for, minimally, ten seconds, maybe twelve.

“Let’s look up printers in the Yellow Pages.”

It was like cold fusion in our table-less dining room. We used a book with phone numbers organized by professional trade to find someone to call regarding printing. Next to earning a college degree and winning second place in the third-grade spelling bee, this was my greatest intellectual achievement. It is easily said but hard to accomplish, letting your fingers do the walking. I have considered adding this moment to my resume to illustrate my ability to make the impossible possible and show that, through shear mental fortitude, I am worthy of middle management.

For simplicity’s sake, we found a professional printer about two miles from our stationery provider. They said they could do the job overnight, for roughly the same price as the Inkjet services offered by Crazy Inc. We drove the cardstock back up and told Crazy 2 that she could pick the cards up the next day, as they were still in charge of assembling them.

Let us pause and examine what could have happened. Crazy Inc. could have learned that they couldn’t print the cards, found a larger-scale printer in the Yellow Pages, which some would say is an arcane but still abundantly available resource. Then they could have taken ten minutes, total, to drop off the cards and pick them up next day, without ever mentioning a word of it to us. Instead, we made four two-hour round trips to a store that yelled at us, needed us to solve their problem, and made July, our birthday month, very stressful and agonizing.

Wait. I’m sorry. We still don’t have our invitations yet. They still had to retrieve the RSVPs, assemble the pieces, and have the addresses handwritten on the envelopes. We were already past our deadline.

We were notified by phone that the invitations were ready on a Friday afternoon. We called The MOB and told her to call Crazy Inc. to make pick-up arrangements. Over the course of our dealings with them, Crazy Inc. had pledged to remove certain invitation costs, due to the numerous problems and delays. When The MOB called, they told her the remaining invoice balance, which reflected very few of the discounts we had been offered. The MOB said they should give us the cards at cost, given the hardship endured, mostly by Christa.

Crazy 2 replied, “I would rather throw the invitations away.” She said that she didn’t want to see any of our family’s faces again and that we were her worst customers ever.

The MOB said, “Please don’t do that.”

Then Crazy 2 started yelling, “What would it take to make you happy; do you want them for free? Is that what it would take?”

“It would be all right if you gave them to us for the amount already paid,” The MOB replied.

Crazy 2, still yelling, said, “If you have the nerve to come and get them, after all the work we’ve done, they will be on the steps.”

Yes, they were left outside. The MOB had to close up the church she worked at and rush over to save our invitations. They yelled at The MOB over the phone, while she was working in the house of the Lord, and forced her to evacuate in order to retrieve our invitations.

I still get agitated thinking about those events, and even now, I get so angry I must visualize my emotional escape, a kangaroo with rabbit-soft fur and a pouch full of jelly beans with just enough room for me inside. The snuggly warmth and sugar high create an explosion of colors, as I daydream of a better place.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival