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Thursgay strikes a nerve today with a piece about the enormous difficulty of coming up with an appropriate response to an Evite. The crux of the issue seems to be that, though the option to respond with a simple 'yes' or 'no' does exist, many invitees feel obligated to avail themselves of the service's 'leave a personal message' option, and aren't quite sure how to go about it. We sympathize with these people, obviously. We mean, Evite has only been around since, what, 1997? That's not nearly enough time to figure out how to type "see u there!" The plight of one particular Evite user especially touched our heart:

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.

The sentiment that took Fitzpatrick so long to crank out, and our suggestions for how she might be able to avoid this crippling issue in the future, are after the jump.

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.)

Carolyn, a word to the wise: we save ourselves the hassle of spending twenty minutes coming up with paragraphs like the one above with a two-pronged approach: *not being lame *realizing that a party thrown by someone who is lame enough to send an Evite is not someone whose party we would want to attend.

See how it works for you!

Online RSVPs: A Simple 'No' Just Won't Do [NYT]