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Cathy, 12/28/04

As I predicted, going through the wedding planning process at the same time as Cathy of Cathy has turned out to be a fairly unsettling and for the most part unpleasant experience. In the past couple of days, though, I’ve noticed something in the strip that perhaps looms much larger in my life than it does in the lives of most normal, non-wedding-planning persons: shameless plugs for Thebigday.com. This is an online gift registry where you can register for just about anything you want; people buy you stuff online, and you get a note telling you what people bought and a check with which to buy it all (or to spend on hookers and blow, if you prefer, although you probably shouldn’t mention that in your thank you notes).

Anyway, due to our aversion to acquiring more crap and desire to go on a fab honeymoon, my fianceé and I plan on registering at this site for our wedding later this year, and thus it’s deeply distressing to see it being shilled in Cathy. It’s hard enough getting married when you’re a pair of contrary, anti-establishment hipsters, but when the indie rock song you picked out for the ceremony gets covered in a cheesy movie starring J.Lo, the inexpensive yet nice-looking dress you want is the darling of all the ladies at Indiebride.com, and the cool wedding registry you plan on using is suddenly plastered all over Cathy — well, sometimes it seems that the whole world is against you. Our lives: a series of never-ending trials.

The last isn’t really so bad, though, if it introduces the concept to our elderly relatives who have apparently been waiting our entire lives to buy us some gold-rimmed piece of china that we’ll eat off of maybe once every other year. Of course, we’re going to be registering for fun vacation-related gifts so we can party hardy in the Mediterranean, not spaying and neutering services. Our cat is already spayed, and frankly, fixing the rest of them will not be high on our priority list on the big day. I do wonder if Thebigday.com paid Cathy for the prominent mention — in which case this may be the first instance of comic strip product placement that I can remember. Earlier today, I was unable to reach the site, which prompted the horrifying vision of millions of glassy-eyed Cathy minions, with that “Hang In There” kitten smiling down at them from the wall, all simultaneously visiting the site and overwhelming their Web servers.