Jay asked me last night, as he does most every year around this time, "Am I supposed to get you candy for Valentine's Day?" So sweet, right? I said, "I don't want your crap last-minute guilt candy. Screw that. I'll go pick out my own better candy the day after."
You may think this is harsh, but I've learned through the years that unless we don't stop this idiocy that is Valentine's Day now, we're gonna keep perpetuating this myth that February 14 is anything other than the day after February 13. Even after 20 years, Jay's still a little bit afraid of what will happen if he DOESN'T get me anything, no matter how often I tell him not to. I blame this on stupid hens he works with. Men cannot learn anything about women from other women in the office. They're meddlesome hags and should be ignored. He'd hold out like a good boy and then cave under the pressure, usually on February 13th around 3 p.m. He'd make a mysterious "gotta run some errands" comment and I'd know tomorrow I was going to be the very unimpressed recipient of a really big Hershey's bar or some really sad looking flowers, or worse.....something prewrapped in red or pink cellophane and/or with the word LOVE written on it. Unable to be cruelly ungrateful, I'd have to pretend it's what I wanted, and what does that get me? The job of balancing that ridiculously priced piece of crap in our checkbook, and the same crap the next year. It's a bad habit we have to break now.
My mother taught me growing up that the bright and pretty Easter baskets were crap, and now I'm telling you the same goes for V-day shit. The chocolate is crap. The wilting flowers are crap. The stupid stuffed animals are crap. It's all crap, this red and pink cursive crap. Women do NOT want this. We want only the good shit or nothing at all. Do you ever see a grown woman with a teddy bear on her wall/counter/desk/toilet? No. Here's a total freebie for any men who stumbled on this revelatory post: Stuffed animals are stupid inventions meant to give children in sweat shops something to make during their breaks. Kids don't need them, dogs destroy them, and women do NOT want them.
We women are partly to blame for this whole mess. What do we do to our children? We force them to fill out a stupid valentine for EVERY person in their class - girls, boys, teachers, other teachers. We encourage them to decorate a cereal box with hearts and flowers. We add cheap candy in the hopes that they will equate candy + valentine = love. My math sucks, but even I know that doesn't work. When they get older, they stick with what they know. Candy + valentine = love (or at the very least getting laid). But it doesn't. So they think they're doing it wrong. And they get crazed, desperate, frantic. They buy the BIGGEST stuffed animal. They buy the BIGGEST box of candy. They buy ANY flower, plant, or sort of living thing left. They buy cards with entire poems written inside. They move on to jewelry stores (Thank you, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, for your cheapass diamond chip pendants). They try to win our heart and fail each time. Why? I hope you men are still reading because this is the REALLY important part: Women are not turned on by stuffed animals. Candy, while it makes us happy, does not make us horny.
Speaking of what is NOT a turn on, I make this plea on behalf of all women: Just please, PLEASE stay out of the lingerie. Do not even go there. You don't know our size, you will overpay, and we will be offended at whatever $50 pathetic scrap of fabric you proudly present (p.s. a thong makes a terrible gift, but an AWESOME noose). My last secret to men is actually Victoria's: Real women do not look like those models nor do we wear what the models wear. You don't look like the hot guy with the big package in the underwear ads, either, so accept that lingerie is really just an offensive slur for women's underwear, and we just want to be left alone to pick out our own and not have it riding up our asses.
So as the recipients of this unwanted, unnecessary, and yes, undesirable cornucopia of crap, we women need to step up and put an end to the madness. Like horrible puppy mills, we have to discourage the bad habits at the source. Stop forcing little kids to write out valentines for their whole class. Stop giving them money as teenagers to waste on pink stuffed animals and $8 Hallmark cards. And for pity's sake, stop encouraging grown men to buy anything in the "seasonal" aisle of any store at any time during the month of February, and let's finally get what we REALLY want - that day-after 50% off discounted bonanza. Every woman knows candy at a bargain is the best candy of all. And there might even be some appreciation left over for sex.
Queen of my own Magic Kingdom, full of all the irreverent, obnoxious, and sometimes offensive sarcasm you know and love. I don't care what people think of me, but I do care if you like my blog. Read, forward, repeat.
