It’s been sitting on my coffee table at home for about a week and I swear I hear it snickering at me whenever I walk by.

Holly opens it everyday and takes out its contents; I avoid it all costs. It doesn’t look very threatening, and no one else at my house seems to be afraid of it but me.

Yesterday two different people came in my house and sat in my living room and neither one seemed to notice it. I just kept looking from it to them, wondering, don’t you hear it. Don’t you hear it mocking me every time I come in the room?

Finally Emily asked what it was the other day. Good, I thought someone else besides me would come to dread the box. &uot;It’s Holly’s graduation invitations,&uot; I replied. All she said was &uot;Cool&uot; and skipped out of the room. I swear the lid on that box opened up and a deep, soul-shaking, belly laugh came from it.

I’ve only looked at them once. They are very nice. Pretty paper, nice font size, grammatically correct, time and date are correct and they make feel nauseous. They have a place for her name cards in them and she wants me to put a wallet size graduation photo in each one. I think she has lost her mind. I only ordered about 150 wallet photos and the crazy child wanted 50 of them to give away to her friends.

How am I going to paper a wall in my closet with only 100 photos? Or maybe better yet I can start tacking one up in all the places I go everyday so that she will be there. Two or three at work, at least 10 or 12 at her school, a few at church, the youth group room, one in every room of the house and three or four in my car. Don’t laugh, this will be harder than you think, there are only three different poses to pick from.

Holly keeps telling me that we have to address them and send them out soon; they are supposed to be mailed three to four weeks before graduation. She picked a fine time to become Miss Manners. Personally, I was thinking if I didn’t send hers out and if I could get the other senior moms not to mail any out maybe no one would show up. Then we could get graduation over without half of the town watching me cry or better yet we could cancel it due to lack of attendance.

Someone else mentioned last week that they were giving her monogrammed thank-you notes for a graduation present. Presents? What are people thinking? Presents are for happy occasions; I guess that’s why the seniors get them and not the parents. I’m thinking if you want to give me a gift put a hold on the thank-you notes and go ahead and send me a case of wine. Or two.

Last night she told me that this weekend we are definitely sitting down and addressing all of them and mailing them out. So beware, and don’t blame me if next week you receive a snickering envelope in the mail.