1) Guarantees you will outlast the end of the Mayan calendar — the seed company in Dundas, Ontario knows something the Mayans don’t.

2) Great conversation starter at fancy dinner parties: “Have you heard about the new Atlantis hybrid miniature broccoli? How about the latest bolt-resistant Coriander Calypso variety?”

3) You’ve been mourning the loss of the Eaton’s catalogue since 1976; your garden seed catalogue is the next best thing.

4) Makes a great bathroom reader next to your dog-eared editions of Mad Magazine and the Economist.

5) Hastens the arrival of spring by a minimum of three weeks.

6) Heritage vegetable and flower seeds offset the guilt you feel purchasing the latest modified hybrids.

7) Your gardener father-in-law Claus piggybacks on your 2013 seed order and returns the form with cash tucked inside the envelope, which buys you a pint of Amsterdam and pizza after pick-up hockey.

8) You peruse fancy gardening tools such as the traditional English Half Moon Hand Hoe with Knob Handle, knowing that you are too cheap to fork out the 35 bucks and that you will enjoy that fancy implement in a subsequent life.

9) The 35 bucks you actually spend on your seed order will put some fine food on the table in 2013 and beats dropping $2,400 at Rama on a Friday night.

10) When the precious seeds arrive in a box from Canada Post, your nephew Felix helps you and Claus divvy the packets, because you have both forgotten what you ordered.