Ultra-soundoff!

Editor's Note: Commedienne Pam Stone writes her column for The Tryon Daily Bulletin twice each month from her office in the "Unabomber Shack" on her Gowensville farm. Want a chance to respond to this column? Go to Pam’s blog at www.tryondailybulletin.com.

I'm not a "resolutions" type of gal.

Any annoying characteristics I have, from unabashedly breaking into "That's Amore!" while driving, to leaving a chunk of cheese out on the countertop until it resembles a Rubik's cube, will assuredly be pointed out to me by friends and my fella, Paul. I really don't need a particular date, say, January 1st, to make me cease and desist. A baleful look accompanied by a groaning, "I just hate when you do that!" generally puts the brakes on these things. For a day or two, at least.

What I would like to request, this New Year, is that other people make resolutions. And bloody well stick to them.

Here's one: As a childless woman myself, (and by the way, I hate the word childLESS. I simply didn't spawn. I don't want kids. I don't want a Porsche, either, but no one calls me "Porscheless"....) I still understand that people like to send Christmas greetings that are a flat piece of laminated card with a photo of their children emblazoned upon it. I get it: you're proud of your children! Problem is, I don't know who you are!

For years, I've been receiving cards from strangers with no return address and unrecognizable last names, featuring Haley and Devon in various costumes amidst Olan Mills backdrops, now somewhere in their twenties and looking rather bored in matching Ohio State Jerseys. So, please, no more.

This year trumped them all: I received a Christmas Card that featured a photo of an ultrasound. That's right: an ultrasound of a fetus. It took me at least five minutes to figure out what it was – like a festive Rorshach test. Proudly, turning it at an angle, I proclaimed to Paul, "Ha! It's a Fruitbat! With a hematoma!" Paul sighed, turned it right-side-up in my hand and corrected, "It's a baby."

Now, what am I supposed to do with such a thing? I am not going to proudly display this anywhere. An ugly little truth about Christmas cards is that most people arrange the most beautiful cards they receive at the front of their mantlepieces or hutches. You know, the reproductions of "Currier and Ives," glittery Santas and gilt-edged old master's angel and nativity scenes. If you think I'm sticking an ultrasound next to a Caravaggio, you've hit the eggnog early. It's going behind a vase, face-down, in a pile that includes Thomas Kincaid (I'm sorry but his paintings make my teeth hurt) and that stupid Wiemerarmer wearing antlers.
I suppose we're entrenched in an era that seems to embrace telling everybody everything about ourselves. Celebrities do it all the time: Roseanne periodically appears on Larry King and has informed us, over the years, of tales about split-personalities, prostitution, etc. Politicians, pundits and mega-stars dive into rehab as soon as they're arrested and reappear to cleanse themselves with candid autobiographies and "tell all" exclusives, so I suppose it's not too out of the question that a young, married, couple, elated by the prospect of their first born, would emblazon a copy of their ultrasound for all the world to see. Let's just hope it stops there. I shudder to think that next year, my quaking hands might be holding a card boldy exclaiming, "Happy Holidays!" while framed in sparkling snowflakes is the image of donor eggs. Oy.

Happy New Year!