Alright! Since we’ve covered our Christmas and New Year’s greatest hits, let’s move on to Valentine’s Day which may well be the worst “holiday” ever contrived. Enjoy!
I swear, the only person who ever celebrated this day right was Al Capone! – Dr. John Becker
I hadn’t really thought about covering Valentine’s Day because it’s not a real holiday. My general rule is, if you don’t get the day off, it’s not worth celebrating. But when my good friend and fellow curmudgeon Bill Wright said he was looking forward to my thoughts on the subject, I decided to give it my best shot.
But rather than listening to me ramble on about this kind of abject bullshit one more time, let’s turn to my favorite fictional curmudgeon, TV’s Dr. John Becker, for the perfect take on a day even more commercially crass than Christmas:
It’s Valentine’s Day? Oh crap! Valentine’s Day is the shallowest, greediest exploitation of emotions since my second marriage. It’s not even a real holiday, you know that, don’t you? It’s created by an evil cartel of florists, candy manufacturers, and Champagne makers. If you ask me, the government should stop hounding Microsoft and get the damn greeting card companies off our backs.
Then there’s this:
It’s kind of like holidays. It’s like this weird emotional obstacle course. No sooner do you get past the rotating blades of Thanksgiving, ya gotta duck under the live ammo of Christmas and New Year’s. And just when you think you’re home free, bam! You get attacked by some little Cupid bastard. I mean, you know, whoever gave a baby a bow and arrow anyway.
And my personal favorite:
I know, I know! It’s Valentine’s Day. I swear, the only person who ever celebrated this day right was Al Capone! I’ve seen more lives turned upside down by this holiday. It takes love and turns it into a pain-in-the-ass obligation. If we’re not careful, the phrase ‘I love you’ is going to turn into something as meaningless as ‘have a nice day,’ ‘check’s in the mail’ or ‘I promise I won’t stab you with a fork.’
I couldn’t have said it better myself. And that’s not nearly all:
- 53 percent of women would end their relationship if they didn’t get something on Valentine’s Day. No pressure there!
- 11,000 children are conceived on Valentine’s Day. If that isn’t a deterrent, I don’t know what is!
- 3 percent of pet owners will give their pet a gift on Valentine’s Day. At least dogs love you back!
- 11 percent of marriage proposals occur on Valentine’s Day. Yet another reason to wait it out in the crawlspace.
- The city of Verona, Italy, receives approximately 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine’s Day. If Shakespeare had known that he never would’ve penned the play.
- 14 percent of women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day. Why not? If you wait for us you might die before it happens.
And I could continue, but I’m already fuckin’ depressed enough as it is.
And don’t even get me started on Valentine’s Day’s dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks illegitimate son, “Sweetest Day.” All I can say is, your average vampire ain’t got nuthin’ on the group of blood-sucking retailers who conjured up thid crime against humanity.
My favorite Sweetest Day recollection revolves around the time I was visiting my mother and the doorbell rang. Since she was in the can, as any stellar son would, I dutifully answered the door only to discover a deliveryman holding a rather large floral arrangement.
It didn’t take long to determine that one of my younger brothers and his wife were responsible for this truly heinous act.
You see, they could never get past the fact that my mother – a true curmudgeon in her own right – always favored me, and that meant taking advantage of any artificial opportunity to turn the relationship dynamic into a how-can-we-make-you-love-us-more competition.
Not to be outdone, and unwilling to spend one thin dime on an eminently counterfeit “holiday,” I simply added “and Jeff!” to the bottom of the attached card in bright blue ink. I thought it was freakin’ hilarious!
Now, my mother, who detested any kind of pretense, thought it was just as funny as I did, but my sister-in-law didn’t take it in quite the same way. So, shortly thereafter, I was the proud recipient of the kind of phone call that would’ve made Lindsay Lohan blush.
While the discourse was certainly entertaining for a while, tiring of the tirade, I finally interjected with, “I’ll be happy to buy you a sense of humor,” at which point I gently hung up the phone.
That, of course, incited my brother into hitting redial at which point he demanded to know if I actually had the nerve to hang up on his wife. Never one to shy from the truth, I politely said “yes,” and I hung up on him.
As a result, they refused to speak to my wife and me for the better part of a year, which ironically, only made my mother angry at them.
It was the best Sweetest Day ever!
