It was 1992, I was planning my wedding, my expectations were high.
My warped sense of humour had great plans for invitations with a difference. I was torn between two options.
Option 1: A standard invite with the added inclusion of a credit card box field where the invited would submit their details and allow me to book up the wedding gift of my choosing, price be damned.
Option 2: Something a little more personal. Kate and What's His Name cordially invite you and the latest Russell Hobbs Forgettle (the friggen Mercedes of the newly discovered switch-off automatic jugs).
Inviting a different, high-priced, gift from each attendee.
Now, bearing in mind that it is the 90s, one could think my idea absurd, cheeky or downright obscene - turns out - if today's stories are to be believed, it was freaking revolutionary, ahead of its time.
The difference being, my idea was just for a laugh. Those who knew and remarkably still loved me would get the joke and should a Forgettle find its way onto the gift list then so be it, who was I to argue?
This sense of entitlement that has slowly swept the globe in the past few years has become most apparent in wedding expectations.
From demands for guests to pay for their own meals, overseas travel expenses for away from home matrimonial destinations and specific wardrobe requirements to going as far as putting a ban on the type of guest who is permitted as acceptable to attend.
I've read stories of no kids - I can kind of get on board with that if they're today's typical version of uncontrolled vermin, explained away by a dodgy diagnosis of ADHD.
Trust me, as the parent of three energetic male (their identifier, not mine) spawn, it took weeks of training with a cat of nine tails and the word NO (foreign to many) aided by a thing called consequences, to ensure I could venture into any public arena without the fear of a public tantrum.
It's since refined to 'the look' - a shot across a room to them that let them knew in no uncertain terms they were living on borrowed time. Another wonderfully acceptable trait back in a bygone era.
But to disallow the groom's father because his burn-scarred body may induce trauma to fellow guests (not to mention screw up the perfect wedding photos) is just shameful.
Really? Is this how shallow and intolerant we have become?
Then I read of women going to great lengths to book the births of their kids so they can have all the necessary beauty treatments in place to ensure the perfect post-birth selfie.
Such a shame that all the effort goes into the wedding and the birth, while so little goes into the marriage and parenting.
And we're expected to believe that this is progress? WTF.
Seriously, as a parent, I've worried about the future of my children and I'm more convinced than ever that world war is the least of our problems.
Our sense of entitlement, greed and complete lack or loosening of morals will be our undoing. Our failing environment is a testimony to that as is our demented view on what is socially and politically just.
Just my opinion and while I take no pleasure in being the bearer of bad news, thanks to great expectations, as opposed to realistic ones, we're screwed.
We're tightening things that need to be relaxed and relaxing things that should be tightened. We're expecting too much and demanding so little.
I'm almost ashamed to be human.
FOOTNOTE: I never did get a Forgettle. #iamasurvivor
