By Chris Cosci

A couple of weeks ago, I embarked upon a quest - a quest that has been known to wear people down, shatter spirits and bring grown men to tears: the search for a birthday card.

Birthday cards are actually very easy to find. No matter where you are, there's usually a store within fifteen feet that sells greeting cards. Besides greeting card stores like Hallmark, American Greetings and Bob's Big Store O' Cards, you can buy cards in every drug store, supermarket, and retail store. The difficult part is finding a good card. There are no official statistics, but I'd say roughly 99% of all cards are terrible. I think greeting card writers are denied contact with other people. Otherwise, they might actually understand how real people think.

Birthday cards can generally be divided into two categories: serious and humorous. Though, it's probably more accurate to say "trying-to-be-humorous."

Serious cards come in two styles. The first is the religious card, which basically takes some uplifting quote from the Bible and places it on the cover. Inside is a simple greeting, such as "thou shall haveth a glorious birthday." Truthfully, there is nothing really bad about these cards, but unless the person you're buying them for is very religious, you probably won't be looking at these.

The second style is the flowery prose card. These are the cards that, while reading them, you usually have to hold on to something to keep yourself from becoming violently ill. These cards go beyond the borders of normal human emotion into a realm of overly sentimental feelings that only exists in fairly tales and fantasy worlds populated with unicorns and everlasting rainbows; "The tender warmth of your spirit is felt by all those you share your life with, and your aura shines like the gleaming sun reflecting in the beads of misty dew that forms on gentle blades of grass." Who talks like this?

Since serious cards straddle a fine line between intrinsically dull and sickeningly sweet, you're probably better off looking for a humorous card. Unfortunately, humorous cards have their own set of problems, most of which revolve around the fact that they're not actually funny. First of all, too many of them focus on getting older. It's interesting to see how many different ways they can use the old "candles on your cake set off the fire alarm" joke. If it's not about the candles, it's about losing your hearing, your hair, your teeth, your mind, etc. Of course, when the person you're buying the card for is only 27, you sort of hope these problems aren't relevant.

Other cards use the same, tired jokes where the punch line can be guessed before you finish the first sentence. How many cards have you seen that start off with, "Our family is lucky to have someone who is so kind, smart, and funny." Unless you live under a rock or were born without the ability to think, you know that the inside is going to say something like, "but enough about me..."

The worst cards, though, are created by obscure companies that sell their cards in chain stores like Target. Maybe I just keep picking up the wrong ones, but at least half the cards I find in these stores are obsessed with bodily functions. Why would I buy somebody a card that reads "May the memories of your birthday always linger. Now, have some cake and pull my finger."

I think that greeting card creators need to step outside and get in touch with the real world. In the meantime, there is one other solution. You can make your own cards, which has become my mother's latest hobby. Of course, while most people probably use some basic computer software, my mother makes these elaborate, Martha Stewart-like creations that are more like sculptures than greeting cards. As for me, I think I'll start my own line of cards for Target. My first card will begin, "for your birthday, I bought you some art..."