Cards that strike back

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

For all of the heartbroken, the bitter and the scorned, this tale of love lost and hope found is for you. Courtesy Sincerely Not Yours

They were living happily ever after, it seemed, when 15 years into the marriage, on Valentine's Day no less, the girl found out the boy was messing around with other women.

So much for the fairy tale.

The girl left Prince Charming, got a divorce, and started a line of love-me-not greeting cards — the sort that are not sold by Hallmark.

For a while, it seemed Laurie Seaman really did have a fairy-tale life.

She married that hunk she met on a cruise when she was just 18. She followed him through school and to the South Pacific, when he worked as a civil engineer on Kwajalein. She followed him to Hawai'i, where they spent the early 1990s, and she gave birth to their son, Austin, at Kapi'olani Medical Center. She followed her husband to medical school in North Carolina, when he decided to become a doctor. She followed him again when he decided to go back to school and become an orthopedic surgeon.

Along the way, she got her nursing degree and gave birth to another son.

The doctor and the nurse and their two boys were living out the dream.

Nobody said it was going to be a bad dream.

Valentine surprise

Then on Feb. 14, 2000, Seaman was at the computer checking her e-mail while she was holding her toddler. Little Zack hit some keys with his fist, and text popped up on the screen showing the latest handiwork of her husband.

Seaman was curious about what she saw, so she continued to investigate.

"I found lots and lots of e-mails," she said, "to lots and lots of women."

She took her discovery to Kinko's, printed and bound the e-mails, and wrapped them up in a Victoria's Secret box as a valentine for her prince.

She confronted him and left the same day, taking nothing but her boys to her mother's home near Boston.

That's where she turned her rage into wit.

Her doodles and sarcastic lines became a card line called "Sincerely Not Yours."

Love-me-nots

Hallmark didn't bite. People told her she couldn't draw. People told her the cards wouldn't sell.

But Seaman didn't give up. She sent her 30 illustrations to newspapers, got written up in the Boston Globe, did radio shows and now has a Web site (sincerelynotyours.com) and representatives in 23 states, including Hawai'i. The cards cost $2.25, and her other big hit is a Breakup Survival Kit, which includes Hershey's "kiss this" kisses, tissues and fortune cookies.

Her not-so-sweet business has "really taken off," says Seaman, who now works as a nurse part-time so she can concentrate on her family and marketing her cards in novelty stores.

She wondered if she would come off to men as a bitter, scorned woman. But men have become some of her biggest fans.

"I have a lot of men who buy the cards as jokes to other men," she said, "and they sign girls' names."

Her best-seller is one with a girl kissing a frog.

On the front, it says: "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your handsome prince." Inside: "Thanks to you, I'm one toad closer."

Other sentiments are distinctly unsappy.

There's one with a witch on a broomstick. Inside, it says: "Glad to hear you've been swept off your feet."

And another zinger is one with an unhappy couple standing back-to-back. "I've finally found the perfect person for you," it says. Inside, there are no words, just a mirror.

Most of the nurses Seaman works with have no idea she has such a poison pen.

The former high school cheerleader is downright perky.

The 37-year-old East Coaster claims she is no male-basher. This has simply been her coping mechanism.

"I've kind of had the ultimate lemons to lemonade story," she said. "I didn't need therapy."

And then ...

It would be a pity to ruin such an unsappy story by giving it a happy ending, so all of you expecting Seaman to walk off solo into the sunset can stop right here.

Those of you who can take the bitter with the sweet, read on:

"God has a weird way of working things out," she said. "I met someone seven months ago, and his birthday is Valentine's Day."

He won't be receiving one of her cards.

On the Web:

• Check out the cards at: www.sincerelynotyours.com