Oddly Specific Greeting Card

"Scratched by Cat" cards are in the next aisle over.

Greeting cards. They're an easy way to let someone know you're thinking about them, whether it's their birthday, their wedding, a holiday, or a death in the family. But life is unpredictable, so most of the time, it's unlikely to find a card that truly captures your current situation. Luckily, fiction has you covered!

This trope covers those greeting cards you'd never see in real life. Maybe it's for an oddly specific situation ("Sorry I ran over your uncle with a Vespa") or for a relationship nobody really thinks about ("Happy birthday to my favorite step-cousin twice removed!"). It may weird a character out, or it may be oddly well suited for their current situation, especially if they're going on a last-minute gift spree. If there's an odd Fictional Holiday in a work, some odd greeting cards may exist to celebrate it.

Note that this typically only applies for greeting cards meant to be mass-produced and sold. Handmade greeting cards are expected to be tailor-made to a specific situation, but a company predicting every possible situation that could warrant a card is less predictable.

Sister trope to Specific Situation Books. Compare Merit Badges for Everything.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• Futurama: The 31st century has a Great Nephew Day, and Fry comes across a greeting card for the specific relationship.
• The Judge Dredd horror spin-off Tales from the Black Museum dedicates an entire story to this trope. Fierce competition pushes greeting card manufacturers to come up with increasingly specialized products: "Happy Umpty Fix", "Welcome Home from the Cubes", "Condolences at this time of Resyk", "Your First Belly Wheel", "Thinking of You" (the last one issued by Psi-Division). This being a horror spin-off, things get grislier from there.

Comic Strips

• Peanuts: In a 1971 strip, Lucy asks Linus why he's making a Mother's Day card instead of just buying one at the store. When she shows him the card she bought, the verse says, "Dear Mother, I bought this card for you with my own money instead of giving you a hand-made one like some cheap kid I know!"
  Linus: These days you seem to be able to get a card for almost any occasion...
• A one-panel cartoon by Gahan Wilson depicts a greeting card aisle with its own section dedicated to "Stop Sending Me Cards" cards.

Literature

• From the Dave Barry column "He's A Poet And Didn't Realize It," in which Dave is informed he has been selected to write a poem by a publishing company:
  I once thought about writing poems for a line of thoughtful greeting cards but I finished only one, which went:
  "Thinking of you at this special time
  "Hoping your organ removal went fine."

Live Action TV

• A Bit of Fry and Laurie: One sketch features a man trying to buy a get-well card for his wife, only to discover that all the cards in the shop come with specific details about who the card is from, who is receiving it and what is wrong with them. (He buys one card for a grandmother with a hernia "on the off-chance", despite the fact that not only would he have to change his name for it to be useful, his grandmother would have to come back to life.) The assistant eventually finds him a card that matches his case precisely... except it's supposed to come from a Frederick, and his name is Alfred. She ends up giving him an oddly specific card expressing sympathy for his situation.
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: When discussing the incredibly tedious process of rejecting a timeshare inherited in a will, John mentions there could be a market for greeting cards reading: "I'm sorry for your loss, but also move fast if you don't want to get stuck with the fees on your dead mom's Hilton Head two bedroom."
• Discussed in an episode of Modern Life Is Goodish in which Dave goes on a rant against the greetings card industry and how cheeky he finds it that they create demand for their own products. He demonstrates this with a hypothetical "Congratulations on buying a new washing machine" card, as well as real-life examples of cards he hates such as Father's Day cards for Grandads and Great-Grandads and a Valentine's card for children to give to their parents.
• My Name Is Earl: Invoked. When Earl tries to help a former fitness trainer get together with his old crush, Earl starts falling for her himself. Catalina tries to talk him out of pursuing her.
  Catalina: You're going to feel terrible about this. And when you try to find a card to apologize, you won't be able to find one because it is too specific.
• Roseanne: When Becky... well, cuts the cheese in front of her high school's student council after a speech, Crystal comes by to offer her condolences. And brought Becky a card.
  Roseanne: Well, they said they make a card for everything. Who knew?
  Dan: (reads) ...I'll be damned.
• Titus: Mentioned when Dave thought his girlfriend left him a Dear John letter. Titus started insulting her to help Dave feel better. Then it turned out to be a misunderstanding.
  Titus: Never take sides in a breakup. Your friend is heartbroken so you try to help by calling her a cheap whore. Then they get back together and you've gotta buy her a "sorry I called you a cheap whore" card. And those cost like twelve bucks, because they know they've got you.

Magazines

• MAD: Issue #99 features an interview with the Greeting Card Manufacturer of the Year. He claims to have cards for every occasion imaginable and asks the interviewer to give an example. The interviewer says that his niece has recently been bitten by a dog, and the manufacturer asks the dog's color. Cue a rack of "Bitten by dog" cards, with one heading for brown dogs, one for spotted dogs, etc.

Puppet Shows

• In the Dinosaurs episode "The Last Temptation of Ethyl", Ethyl has a near death experience and Earl buries her in the backyard before calling a doctor; Ethyl manages come back to life and climbs out of her "grave". The next morning we see a still upset Fran making breakfast while Earl reads her a card he bought for her:
  Earl: "What can I say, when I ruined your day and made you all angry and surly? //
  How could I make, such a thoughtless mistake and bury your mother too early."
  (beat) Oh come on, Frannie, they wouldn't make this kind of card if this didn't happen all the time.

Video Games

• Deltarune: In Chapter 2, Undyne gives you a "Get well soon!" card with "For your bike" written under it to give to Alphys after her bike crashed. If you check the greeting card section at Sans' store, the only cards available are "Get well soon!" and "I'm glad your bike crashed".
• Dimentio says in Super Paper Mario that if cards for helping with evil plans exist, he owes the protagonists one.

Web Animation

• Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "Greeting Cards", Strong Bad gets a letter from a fan who wants to tell his friend that his indie films suck. Strong Bad reveals he has his own line of greeting cards to give to friends who should give up on their dreams. On top of independent filmmakers, there's also cards for people in terrible bands, mediocre web cartoonists, and unfunny stand-up comedians.

Webcomics

• Dork Tower: Valentine's cards for friends unwilling to make a move on a friend whose sexuality they're uncertain of and don't want to risk their friendship are in aisle E at Hallmart.
• The Last Days of FOXHOUND: An oddly specific "get better" card, but it has the same effect; Psycho Mantis gets Revolver Ocelot a card that says "rot in hell, you prick" when he's in the hospital, in hopes that Ocelot would have complications during surgery.

Web Original

• Foil, Arms and Hog: The sketch "A Greeting Card for Literally Everything" is set in a store that sells hyper-specific cards such as "Sorry for Embarrassing You in Front of Derek" and "Best of Luck in the Autopsy!" The customer is increasingly frustrated that despite their claim of having a card for every occasion, they don't have a simple "Happy Birthday" card he can send to his niece. But they do have an "Allison, Wishing You a Wonderful 11th Birthday from your Uncle Leonard" card.

Western Animation

• Arthur:
  • In "Rhyme for Your Life", Muffy buys a greeting card for her butler and chauffeur, Bailey. It reads, "Who says good help cannot be found? Thanks so much for driving me around."
  • In "Fernlets by Fern", Fern begins writing greeting cards, and Muffy becomes her manager. Late one night, she calls Fern to ask for a "sorry I accidentally shaved your hamster" card.
• Big Mouth: In "My Furry Valentine," Jessi and Matthew look for Valentine's Day cards and find a whole section for conjoined incestuous twins, saying things like, "Two hearts sharing the same beat, two bodies sharing the same feet." This becomes a Brick Joke when a pair of conjoined twins end up on a date at the same restaurant as Jessi and Matthew.
• Bob's Burgers: In "Ferry On, My Wayward Bob and Linda", the kids make fun of Bob and Linda's lackluster plans for Valentine's Day.
  Louise: Jeez, guys. Do they make a valentine card that's also a condolence card?
  Teddy: They do. I've got that one.
• Invoked in BoJack Horseman. Ralph Stilton runs a greeting card company and tries to come up with obscure holidays so he can sell cards for those holidays. He also has a greeting card ready for when Princess Carolyn has a miscarriage.
  Ralph: On the outside, it says, "Life isn't fair-age."
• Family Guy: In "Eight Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", Peter learns that he can just run up a tab at Mort's pharmacy before paying it off. This gives him the idea of buying an entire selection of greeting cards for general purpose use. When Mort calls for Peter to pay off the tab, Peter tries to sell Meg to Mort (as his son Neil's girlfriend) to settle the tab.
  • Lois is naturally outraged, but cools off after Peter gives her a card saying "I'm sorry I tried to sell our daughter".
    Peter: You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find one of those things in English.
  • Quagmire comes up and asks if Peter has any greeting cards for giving someone a venereal disease.
    Quagmire: Hey Peter, uhh you have a card for if you transfered V.D. to somebody.
    Peter: Uhh lets see here...uhh yep, "Sorry I accidentally gave you V.D."
    Quagmire: Huh, that's all you have is accidental huh? All right I'll take it.
• The Loud House: In "No Spoilers," the kids need to distract Leni, a known party-spoiler, from helping them plan Rita's birthday, so Lincoln sends her to find a card that has a llama in a spacesuit on the front and "Happy Birthday From Your 11 Kids" on the inside. At the end of the episode, Leni reveals she found a card matching that exact description.
• Lloyd in Space: In "Nerd from Beyond the Stars", Kurt mentions that Larvel's coccooning phase can't be as weird as they think it is, since he found a card for it at the gift shop. Downplayed in that the selection wasn't very broad so he had to get one addressed "to a wonderful grandson".
• Phineas and Ferb: In "Vanessassary Roughness," Candace tries to find a card to celebrate the anniversary of when she and Jeremy went to Slushy Dog together for the first time and he spilled a cheese dog with mustard on her. Stacy says, "I don't think they make a card for that." Later in the episode, Stacy actually finds a greeting card for a spilled cheese dog with mustard.

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