Just in case everyone wasn’t already aware, I do actually spend close to every waking second thinking about paper and books. Some would say this is a little extreme, and it probably is, but I tend to enjoy it. At 7:00 p.m. today, after a full day of printing, binding, designing, and invitation planning, it all came to a head.

(Just a heads up, if you’re a fan of Fawlty Towers, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about here. If not, please go watch as many episodes as you can immediately! This is the gem of a segment that came to mind…start watching about 7 minutes, 55 seconds in…)

John Cleese’s mishap-prone Basil Fawlty and his judgmental but abiding wife, Prunella Scales’s equally hilarious Sybil Fawlty, are hosting a gourmet night in the dining room of their English hotel. They’ve shooed away “the riffraff” as Basil calls them, and have ended up with 2 couples game to take the plunge. Of course, comedy ensues and, after losing their alcoholic chef to his vice early on in the evening, Basil arranges two ducks from the nearby French restaurant instead, thereby scrapping the previously advertised menu for the evening in favor of Duck with Orange, Duck with Cherries, and Duck Surprise (duck without orange or cherries, of course). When the clientele questions the limited nature of the menu and asks, “So there’s only duck?”, Basil replies, “Yes, but done of course the three extremely different ways.”

I’ll admit that I thought of this exchange in the show because I’ve been considering packaging options for my cards to make them as marketable and eye-catching as possible, and pretty much keep coming up with ever-so-slight variations on essentially the same theme…cards done three extremely different ways: in a cellophane envelope with the card facing out on top, card not showing on top, with ribbon, without ribbon, or - the ultimate combo - card facing out on top WITH ribbon!

I don’t think it’s even up for debate to say that my family has always enjoyed Fawlty Towers because it seems so uncannily similar to many of the situations and reactions my own parents have had with their own business over the years. The family lives above the gallery? In the middle of downtown Marion, Iowa, where people do not do that? It’s bound to happen!

Possibly the most illuminating example is when my dad was performing Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends or A Final Evening with the Illuminati as part of the Liars Theatre season in the summer of oh, say, 1993. He had partially shaved pieces out of his hair to play the paranoid Reverend Eddie and, needless to say, the folks at Farmers State Bank were a bit concerned about him and the teller we always went to, Priscilla, pulled my mom aside one day while she was making a deposit to ask, “Is Craig ok?”.

So it’s not exactly that we had a questionably competent Spaniard like Manuel cleaning the place, or an overly astute and able manager like Polly, but I’m positive more Marionites walked in on the inner workings of family business on a daily basis than probably should have, but I’m sure it was almost as entertaining as a good, solid episode of Fawlty Towers.