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February
/ March 2006 Contest Results |
ValenTIME
By
Joel Schwartzberg, New Jersey
For my
sister-in-law Jessica, February 14 is not only Valentine's Day, but also
her birthday. This is fortunate for my brother, because it means one
less present to get and one less gift-giving date to remember.
That sounds
horrible I know, but it's not that he's cheap or lazy; he's just a
typical male. Men can't plan or remember things as well as women can.
Especially in the throes of a Super Bowl post-party depression.
Few holidays
require the kind of independent planning and remembering skills that
Valentine's Day does. Consider: Dinner reservations have to be made
months in advance. Jewelry needs to be considered and sized weeks in
advance (and bought before the mall closes). Babysitters must be
scheduled way ahead of time. And if you think greeting card options are
depressing on any given day, try getting a decent Valentine's Day card
the morning of February 14. All that's left are inane sexual innuendos
and kissing chimpanzees.
To be fair,
women give as well as receive on Valentine's Day. If they didn't, the
boxer shorts industry would be in big trouble. But if you're educated by
television, movies, and advertising as I am, you know that most of the
focus is on the man, often a husband, invariably in the position of
making up for past transgressions.
Face it, why is
Valentine's Day scheduled so soon after the Super Bowl? In a word:
Payback. The message in a man's Valentine's gift is: "Dear, I've been a
pretty mediocre mate for many months now, so here's a card with two
chimpanzees making out and my name scribbled underneath. Umm, can we
have a 'date
night' now?"
My wife and I
are pretty pragmatic about V-Day traditions. We probably
won't go out the night of February 14, but sometime thereafter. We no
longer give show-stopping Valentine's Day gifts to each other, but revel
in buying our kids candy hearts and paper valentines for school. After
all, nothing says "Happy Valentine's Day" more than a Red Power Ranger
delivering a roundhouse kick into a squid monster's groin.
For the record,
Valentine's Day is based on the story of a third-century priest named
Valentine. Around the year 270, Emperor Claudius II banned marriages
because he decided single men made better soldiers than married men.
It's understandable because single men can use both their hands for
fighting, whereas
married men always need one hand free to hold the remote.
Well, Valentine
thought that was pretty bogus, and started performing illegal marriages
waaaaaaay before performing illegal marriages became all the rage. Take
that, San Francisco!
Next thing you
know, Valentine, "friend of lovers," gets tossed in the slammer, where
he meets a charming young blind woman, as is often the case with the
newly-incarcerated. Valentine miraculously heals her blindness, after
which she immediately says, "Hey, I thought you said you looked like
George Clooney!"
Unfazed, he
writes her a farewell message: "From Your Valentine." The phrase sticks
with us forever. Not so everlasting is Val, who gets executed on
February 24, 270.
This paved the
way to Patron Sainthood, and St. Valentine became the inspiration for a
February 14 Roman festival during which young Romans wrote affectionate
greetings to girls they liked or simply wished to enslave. This went on
for hundreds of years until the sketchy "St. Hallmark" appeared on the
scene, charged them a couple of bucks each for pre-made cards, and
introduced them to the unfunny concept of necking chimpanzees. The rest
is history. For more details, check out VH-1's "I Love the 270's!"
Thinking of St.
Valentine's story has inspired me to break with pragmatic tradition and
go out on Valentine's Day night, one way or another. Maybe I'll bring my
wife, too. If all goes well, I'll bring sight to a couple of blind
people just for the heck of it.
http://www.jesttokill.com
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