I think I've got one somewhere too. It's the only occasion that won't be in the diary as a "don't forget". Unless Dignitas are involved, obviously.

...but only up to a point. Keeping death cards just in case might be a teensy bit (OK, miles) past that point, for me at least.

I say I'm in favour of being organised. I am myself not in the least bit organised. It drives the FPO crazy, and is the main reason she finds herself forced into the position of being an FPO. Plus side: I force her to be a bit more spontaneous and chaotic than she's really comfortable with. Without me, every aspect of her life would be planned for - every aspect - and nobody wants that.

So being a great shambling hopeless shitbiscuit is how I show her I love her, when you get down to it.

Bob.

I love the idea of being organised but am useless at it other than when I'm organising my thoughts on paper; practical stuff is out the window in an organisational sense but I do DIY and things like that it's just that nine times out of ten I get halfway through a job and realise there was an easier way of doing it if I'd organised myself better before jumping in. The other 10% is when someone comments on what I've done and says "why didn't you do it like that?" at which point I have to come up with some convoluted explanation for why I made the job 10 times more difficult than their method implies it needed to be. Bullshit I can organise really well.

Ma Bisto is pretty organised. In the morning she hands me everything I and the kids need for the day: school bags, forms, packed lunches, stuff to post, car keys and then goes off to work herself. I don't think she has a box of cards for every occasion but if I mentioned it to her she would say "ooh, that's a good idea".

I wouldn't ever be that prepared though, mainly because having organised myself enough to have a sympathy card to hand would signal a seismic and fundamental shift in how I think about life. It's difficult to explain but my instinctive reaction to the idea of having a sympathy card to hand is to ponder the moment when the sad news was broken to me and I either thought or commented "At least I bought a card just for such an occasion" which right now makes me feel odd, trying as I am to contemplate balancing the need to express sympathy with the need to be ready for such a moment by having wisely invested in a suitable card before the event. I'm not saying that it's tempting fate to have such a card lying around but I'm not really someone who necessarily wants to be prepared for it in advance. Part of me thinks that, ironically, I am less in control of my life by having that card than if I didn't. By having it I am accepting a certain chain of events are predetermined in life even though I don't have specific information on what those events are and never will have. Yes, there will be tragedy and a need for sympathy but I don't want to qualify that in any way whatsoever beforehand. I want to decide what to do when a decision based upon events is needed.

But I accept that this answer may just be the bullshit of a shambling hopeless shitbiscuit like Bob.

This reminds me of when I worked in customer service for a large high street bank. I checked my own details on the system and found the following two fields:

Date of Birth: 12/12/1978
Date of Death: __/__/____

Kind of shines a light on one's mortality.

up to a point. I wish I was more organised. I used to able to manage most of my life out of my head never resorting to lists or anything like that.

I have a filing system for documents and the like that is ok. I file the pile on my desk about once a month. I can normally find things ok.

We also have a box with wrapping paper in and a few cards. These are normally extra cards and relate to birthdays, christmas and thank you notes. We usually forget we have them or buy ones that are specific to the person at the time of the requirement - it feels more personal that way.

I would not buy a with sympathy card to keep handy because it would, to my possibly odd logic, be me not expressing genuine sympathy. That would be me considering the feelings of the person and then doing something specific for that person. Making that thinking time more streamlined is reducing the amount of effort I'm putting into the sympathy and therefore reducing the amount of sympathy I'm showing.

I may be odd though.

Just not organized enough for my FPO.

... for being the one who knows everyone's (and everyones' parents) birthdays, anniversaries etc., to the point where a single lapse once necessitated a call from the birthday boy wondering if there was anything wrong. I always have a few dozen cards to hand ready to send, and stock up every few months, or when I come across some nice ones.

Even bearing that in mind though, I wouldn't pre-buy a sympathy card - that just seems too "random" for such a devastating event. Yes, I fully admit the bereaved will have better things to think about than "I wonder when they bought this card?", but I'd know, and I wouldn't like it...

... I'll buy a handful of birthday cards and keep 'em in my desk drawer at work thinking I'll be prepared.

But then I either forget I've got cards in my desk drawer or it's so full of stuff I can't find 'em!

I'm hopeless, me.