Least Essential Newspaper Section

Thursday Styles. Breaking news from the front page of today's edition:

• Small dogs that people can carry around with them are popular.
• Carrying around a heavy bag will hurt your neck. And shoulders! (No word on the health consequences of carrying around popular little dogs.)
• People feel pressure to say clever things when responding to Evites.

The last article contains this mind-boggling passage:

Just last week Carolyn Fitzpatrick, 32, a retired lawyer from Wollaston, Mass., spent 20 minutes drafting a “no” response to an Evite.

“Twenty precious minutes,” said Ms. Fitzpatrick, the mother of a 3-month-old and a 2-year-old. “Do you have children? You don’t understand what 20 minutes to yourself is.”

So why bother?

“There’s pressure,” Ms. Fitzpatrick said. “You’re on stage.”

Her Evite reply had to indicate she was glad to have been invited. It had to illustrate she had good reason for not attending. Most of all, it had to be so witty that invitees she did not even know would find themselves wishing she was coming to the party.

“There is a self-image issue with the Evite decline,” she said. “You want people to be sad if you’re not going to be there.”

And so she wrote: “With a boatload of in-laws in town, I unfortunately will be doing nice nice in my own home when I’d much rather be doing eggnog shooters at yours. Please keep us on the guest list. With luck, I won’t be pregnant, traveling or hosting extended family who hate me next year! (Bah Humbug.)”

No offense to Ms. Fitzpatrick, who I'm sure has done nothing to deserve our enmity other than being the reporter's college roommate or something. But seriously? It took you 20 minutes to write that?

More importantly, in what sense can a 32 year old be "retired." I feel like my life has taken a seriously wrong turn.