The Day of St. Valentine

or A Perfectly Fine Thursday That Will Inevitably Be Ruined

The first thing that I want to say about Valentine's Day is that there is pretty much no way it can ever go well. Someone is unhappy, regardless of how hard you try.

For example:

Ideal Valentine's Scenario #1
Gentlemen, you pick your significant female presence up for dinner, give her flowers, and take her to her favorite restaurant. While there, you instruct her to order anything she likes, which she does, and you give her a lovely diamond pendant necklace.

She's happy, and you're happy she's happy, right? WRONG.
Have you seen the bill for this dinner? Let me just say right now, your girlfriend's favorite restaurant is NEVER going to be cheap.

Ideal Valentine's Scenario #2
You make your girlfriend/wife/mistress dinner at home. You set up candles, nice music. It's very romantic and lovely.

Everyone's happy, right?
WRONG
Why didn't you take her out to dinner?

Ideal Valentine's Scenario #3. This one is for the ladies.
You rent your boyfriend's favorite movie (inevitably something with Steven Seagal), pop a bowl of popcorn, and put on something sexy and cuddle on the couch while you watch together.

This is a trick question because it seems like a win-win. It has cuddling, it has movies with explosions. But ladies, at the end of the day, you still had to watch Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.


From these examples, you should have learned there's no way to get this right. This is one of the ways that Valentine's Day is like Lawson's Civil Procedure class.

Now, you may be thinking, "Gee, she's bitter about Valentine's Day. Those crazy bitter single gals this time of year!" No. Just because I'm doing laundry tomorrow doesn't mean I'm upset about it. I enjoy a good love story as much as the next girl. I mean, for example, a story Lance recently sent me: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/07/witaly107.xml
How can you read such a touching story and not be moved by the power of love? I mean, what 13 year-old girl doesn't dream of finding true love with a 34 year-old butcher after a "sexual encounter" in his car? I mean, come on, there was a "deep tenderness" between them. (Insert sexual joke in extremely poor taste here.)

So now that I have adequately demonstrated both my fondness for true love and my great wisdom about the inevitability of unhappiness on this, the second most made up holiday of the year (Sweetest Day is clearly first), I shall impart to you my suggestions for making the most of your Valentine's experience.


Five Things To Do On Valentine's Day:
1. Buy the author of your favorite blog a gift. She prefers things that are more long-lasting but would settle for flowers, candy, candygrams, or a nice card.

2. Call, e-mail, skywrite to, or text your significant other first thing to wish them a Happy Valentine's Day. This only applies if you are the "boy" in the relationship, regardless of whether or not you are actually male. Take note of this, Renee.

3. Figure out where the apostrophe actually goes in the word "Valentines" I mean, I'm only guessing I'm right. But, as a reader of my blog you know I am usually right.

4. Drink. Liquor is a universal necessity for Valentine's Day. Bonus: If you're one of those people who gets depressed about being single, then you can either a) drink until you pass out and you don't even know your own name much less that you're single or b) go to a local bar full of similarly minded people, meet one, drink a lot, and then not be single again. At least until the next morning or until his or her cab comes.

5. Really take your time to come up with an excellent gift. Some things that are sort of lame as far as gifts go are flowers and chocolate. Sure it's easy, and sure every big retail chain and every commercial are suggesting that's what you give, but think about it. Flowers die. Chocolate makes you gain a lot of weight and so close to Spring Break! Hard to look good in your bathing suit when you have a thoughtless significant other who gave you a box of chocolate that you clearly had to eat. That being said, if you are planning to give your significant other flowers or chocolate, good for you! You can reap those "at least he tried" bonus points. One thing you should never ever do is wait until the day after Valentine's Day and buy a stuffed animal that is on clearance and give it to your girlfriend. I'm not naming any names, but you know who you are.


Remember tomorrow night when you are celebrating with your significant other how much you really owe to me, my blog, and my vast expertise on terrible Valentine's Days.