It’s almost Mother’s Day, which means we’re all schlepping to the stores to buy cards for the moms in our lives. This includes your beloved mother, of course, but also your cousin’s poor excuse for a wife. This is where things get tricky.

According to Hallmark, we each purchase an average of 2.8 cards for the third-largest card-sending holiday in the U.S., with 141 million cards exchanged each year. The company says it offers nearly 1,600 cards for the occasion, including options ”to meet the needs of today’s complex family relationships – step-family relationships, former in-laws, Dads-as-Moms, Dad’s Wife, Birth Mother and friends who are ‘like family.’”

Fantastic. But what about today’s other complex family relationships – you know, the ones that suck?

Perusing the aisles in your average drugstore, you’ll come across attractive cards with moving and possibly cheesy poetry declaring your adoration and admiration for Mom, Grandma and Dad’s Wife. But maybe you’re not wild about Dad’s Wife – or even Mom, for that matter – and you’re after a card that fulfills the holiday’s obligations but isn’t buried in a sappy love story.

For Grandma, on this Mother’s Day

I don’t know what I did to deserve someone like you in my life.

Enjoy your special day.

Love, Granddaughter

Well, good luck finding that.

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