Tarts, Sours, and Crème de Poo Poo

I saw children in the Walmart aisle today, laughing and pointing up at the familiar February landmarks. Their father glumly followed after them, glancing up at the big red hearts suspended from the ceiling.

Valentine’s Day is hard to miss, with reminders stuck on every window. Must buy… candy, cards, flowers, jewelry… or suffer the consequences, which of course would be at the least a big, fat, guilt trip or a wound big enough to need treatment by an electric cauterizing wand. I read sometime back that a woman killed her thoughtless husband with a single blow from a 16” enamel, cast-iron, Panini pan. You wouldn’t want to suffer death by cookware, would you guys?

It’s come to this, the words I love you, mean nothing more than paper or plastic. That is, paper meaning money, and plastic equals’ gift card. When did love turn into, “if you really loved me, you’d…?” Buy me a, diamond, take me to Oistins fish fry in Barbatos, or how about a CL550 Mercedes? When presented with these options, it isn’t so hard to pick out a mushy greeting with a $20.gift card for itunes, now is it? A word to the wise…come along peacefully.

When I start sponging up the feelings that commercialism tends to project…you're nobody till somebody loves you…I dig into my home improvements file, and pull out my divorce papers. Incidentally, I received my final papers from Van Nuys court, in the mail on a certain Valentine’s Day, years ago. No kidding. I imagine some court clerk laughing maniacally and calculating the correct date to mail out hundreds of final decrees so recipients would receive them on that particular Valentine’s Day. Thanks.

If the divorce papers don’t work, I remember the special Valentine’s Day when I received an oak toilet seat, which was just one of the grounds leading up to the divorce in the first place. I was a good sport about it though. I installed it in the oval room where it still resides.
The history channel claims Valentine’s Day is marked by the beginning of birds mating season. This confirms my suspicions that Valentine’s Day is truly for the birds. If you want to know more about the history of Valentine’s Day, just click on this link:
http://www.history.com/minisites/valentine/viewPage?pageId=882
You will learn about the Roman ‘lottery’ system that paired couples. I believe this ritual has been resurrected by sites such as, match.com, cyberdating.net, and e-harmony.

St. Valentine was beheaded in the year 269 A.D. or thereabouts. But it just goes to show you, whether you lose your head over love or get struck by a cast-iron Panini pan…you just can’t win.