Each morning I get up, let my dog out and wander aimlessly into my kitchen to prepare whatever low-carb, lo-cal “breakfast” I believe I can force feed myself without incident. This morning as I was spooning cottage cheese out of the container I noticed a pastel green party invitation laying casually on the granite counter top. It was one of the customized, glossy photo invitations that everybody is using now for everything from bah mitzvahs to Christmas cards. The light green back ground was covered with floating daisies and, in the center there was a cockeyed picture of some stranger’s fat, redheaded, smiling baby.
The invitation encouraged the recipient to come and celebrate the life and happiness of Baby. All I wanted to celebrate when I looked at this picture was Baby getting into some clean clothes that hadn’t been covered in green puke (which I was later informed was Baby’s first taste of guacamole. Who puts that in a public photograph?).
I placed my breakfast back in the refrigerator, content that I was about 100 calories closer to a girlish figure than Baby due to my now non-existent appetite.
What happened to cute first year pictures? Was a matching outfit, or an appropriate photo really too much to ask? I would have settled for a photo sans a regurgitated lunch.
With the rise of digital photography, Facebook and photo sites like Flickr, we’re much more apt to take and share pictures of the mundane and sometimes even digestively offensive, but does that mean that it’s okay to send invitations to your loved ones for a birthday party, where, if the invite is any indication, I’m more likely to walk away having been puked on than I would at a Vanderbilt frat party?
This is just one more instance of over-sharing in today’s world. Just because you can put it out there doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
My Record Cake Collection 
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