Sunday, February 13, 2005

St. Valentine's Day

I've never seen the big deal.

Today I drove by about a half-dozen street vendors selling Valentine's Day gifts. The gifts consisted mostly of assorted cheap, waxy chocolates and a small stuffed animal sitting on plastic grass in an Easter-type basket and wrapped in heart decorated cellophane.

If you're giving a gift like this for Valentine's Day then one of two things is probably true:

  1. Your loved one already has low expectations of you.
  2. You don't really love the person at all but are astute enough to understand obligations.

I'm not sure what this kind of gift says. Probably something like:

"...I hope this gift is convincing enough to make you think I really care."

"...I love you very much, here's a gift...I hope you like crap."

"...oh you're welcome, it was nothing. Seriously, I mean it."

If you can make this holiday work, then I'm happy for you. For the mobs that see it like I do, well....we don't have sex much do we?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

you never said if you picked up one of these gifts after all

Anonymous said...

The whole 'I don't do it because it's fake' is just a copout. You could at least make a card. =oo=

Anonymous said...

St. Valentine's day as a holiday is a creation of Hallmark. It is their personal gold mine and exists only to enrich their corporation.

To even make a card is to beg to be manipulated by greedy capitalists.

Tracy said...

That's an excellent point and I agree with you 100%.

Please note that I did not say that I didn't plan to participate nor did I say it was fake. My point was aimed at people who made very little effort. I applaud anyone who can make it work, I just struggle with it. I'm envious of anyone who is good at it.

Anonymous said...

I spent 30 minutes standing in front of a flower stand in Berkeley picking out just the right flowers.

Are flowers a cop out?

Anonymous said...

i was at the grocery store on the 14th and there was a huge line of guys, at 7:30, buying what was left of the dead roses (all the good ones were already gone). my husband called to say "why don't you buy yourself some pretty flowers since you're already there?"

Anonymous said...

I got dumped.

Anonymous said...

ah, i got dumped once on valentine's day too. he thought it was really funny, and took pride in being a jerk. he broadcasted the information to everyone he could.

he was such a loser. good riddance.