Shame on you if you ever confuse Harriet Carter with Lillian Vernon, another catalog fixture in any mother's home.
Where Harriet Carter caters to those dirty-minded geriatrics, Lillian Vernon takes a more suburb-friendly approach. The catalog drips with familial contentment and running a spectacularly functional household.
It's like the Martha-By-Mail for humans.
Lillian Vernon is Harriet Carter's respectable older sister, and she's all about personalization.
They'll personalize bath robes, pencils (which I just ordered), ballet bags and even coolers.
They'd personalize this baby if they had the means.
Personalization reminds me of my first and second grade knapsacks.
My mom bought me a un-personalized bag for the first grade. It was darling, with a little cartoon apple and worm on a pile of books. I believe my mom simply wrote "Mena G." on the canvas in her neat little script.
By the time I got to the second grade, I was ready for the big time. Specially ordered from Lillian Vernon was a blue canvas, old-fashioned knapsack, complete with the name "MENA" embossed in gold letters.
It was impressive -- there is something quite powerful about seeing your name in print.
Which probably explains why I just ordered personalized pencils.
I loved that bag. But, strangely, after I started bringing it to school, my mom suddenly realized that having my name prominently displayed on something I wore on my back was not such a good idea.
"A bad person," she told me, "who wanted to kidnap you would now know your name. And, all he would have to say was 'Mena, there's been an accident. Your mommy's in the hospital and she told me to get you.' He'd be lying and you would never come home again."
Instantly, I feared the bag -- the likely source of any possible abduction. I would walk with the bag clutched to my chest, covering my name -- the accomplice to a horrid kidnapping scheme.
The bag was evil. The bag had betrayed me.
Eventually, my mom rubbed the little letters into an unrecognizable blur of embossed gold. "MENA," the brand-name was no more but at least I had my peace of mind restored.
The fear of personalization haunts me to this day.
Like just the other day I saw a middle-aged man driving his mid-life crisis on 101 near Mill Valley. I can't recall the vanity plate's exact wording, but I remember it was something like an annoyingly-cutesy "ROYSTOY."
And the first thing that popped into my mind?
Enjoy that car while you can, Roy. It's only a matter of time before I see your face on a milk carton.
