Happy 100th?

Here's a little incentive to stay married for what Smash aptly described as "a crazy amount of time": Next year my parents (43rd Anniversary) should gift each other travel.

But that's not the incentive of which I speak. This is the gift that REALLY impressed me: For year forty-four the recommended present is GROCERIES. Yes, GROCERIES.

Everything between the forty-fifth and the hundredth wedding anniversary is a jewel of some variety. Not groceries (super-cool GROCERIES), but I suppose it's seemly enough.

And if you make it to your 100th wedding anniversary (??????) you get a ten-carat diamond. This renders me (almost) speechless (typeless?).

Let's put aside all the other seemingly impossible aspects of making it to one's ONE HUNDREDTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY and think only about the logistical aspects of receiving or giving a TEN-KARAT DIAMOND when one is OVER one hundred years of age (other than affording said gem when one has outlived one's fixed income several times over). A TEN-KARAT DIAMOND is larger than most individuals well over one hundred years of age. Wearing it would be out of the question (brittle bones + ginormous jewel = lil' old person turned into a pile of dusty shards).

I apologize for these possibly repellent images, but I think I've uncovered a real problem here. This gift suggestion is cruel; this is elder abuse.

I am considering starting a petition with which we solicit a change by which the "proper" present for one's 100th Wedding Anniversary is a balloon. Just ONE, not mylar. A balloon "bouquet" might carry a frail, unbelievably aged person right up into the atmosphere on an unintended journey into space.

Your support would be appreciated.