It’s a little late to discuss Valentine’s Day issues, but I’m going to do so anyway. The specific issue I have in mind is: Valentine’s Day presents.
Choosing the right Valentine’s Day gift – one which makes any sort of sense – is a lesson in futility. There’s a reason for this: Women like stupid stuff. Especially on Valentine’s Day.
Even intelligent, professional women (I’m thinking here of The Lovely Mrs. Taylor) turn all goofy every Feb. 14. Mrs. T is mercifully less mushy than the average woman, but even SHE sets her sites on dopey gifts when Valentine’s Day rolls around.
I’m trying not sound like any more of a sexist oinker than I absolutely have to here, but REALLY, when did women decide that flowers make a great gift? Chocolate I can sort of understand – everyone knows they put some sort of girl-specific and highly addictive narcotic in there, probably a crack derivative of some kind.
And, I suppose, even FLOWERS make some sort of skewed sense. They DO smell nice and look pretty. But seriously, if it weren’t for the fact that women like them, men would NEVER, ever, ever buy flowers. For the price of a couple dozen roses, a man can get himself a pretty good Friday night on the town, a circular saw, three Jackie Chan DVDs or a million other things men like WAY better than flowers.
Then there’s jewelry. From a woman’s standpoint, jewelry makes a lot of sense. Women in the early “pre-marriage” stages of a relationship especially like receiving gifts of jewelry. After all, it’s pretty (shows he has good taste), it’s expensive (shows how much he loves me), it’s expensive (shows my girlfriends how much he loves me), it’s expensive (indicates he makes enough money to support me in the style to which I would like to become accustomed), and finally, it’s expensive.
Jewelry isn’t so much a gift as it is a job interview. For married couples, jewelry is a bribe – a husband’s desperate attempt to get his wife to think of him the way she used to before he said “I do.”
Even so, there’s some twisted, feminine logic to jewelry.
That, however, brings us to the REALLY dumb Valentine’s Day gifts. I’m talking now about the gifts which make absolutely NO sense whatever. The gifts so dumb that to call them dumb gives the word dumb a bad name.
Gifts like … teddy bears.
OK. For 364 days out of every year, The Lovely Mrs. Taylor is a bright, no nonsense woman with little patience for foolishness. She’s practical, straight-forward, and has an almost military bearing … pretty much the exact opposite of me, in fact.
She likes things straight-edged, cleared away and orderly.
And yet, as Valentine’s Day approaches, she starts wanting things like, well, like teddy bears. Little, cutesy teddy bears holding hearts imprinted with sayings like “I Wuv You THIS Much!” or “I Can’t BEAR to be Without You!”
Excuse me while I cough up a hairball…
There, that’s better.
Despite years of closely observing women (TOO closely, according to the judge who issued all those restraining orders), I have yet to figure out why ladies over six years old are enamored of teddy bears.
You’d think that if Mrs. T wanted something on the chubby side with a lot of body hair, I’d be enough for her.
But apparently teddy bears have a “cuteness” factor which is noticeably missing in me. At this stage of the game, it’s probably too late to change that.
So I guess I’ll keep doing what I did this past Valentine’s Day; buy the candy, buy the flowers, buy the teddy bear. If she wants jewelry, the bear can buy it for her.
Choosing the right Valentine’s Day gift – one which makes any sort of sense – is a lesson in futility. There’s a reason for this: Women like stupid stuff. Especially on Valentine’s Day.
Even intelligent, professional women (I’m thinking here of The Lovely Mrs. Taylor) turn all goofy every Feb. 14. Mrs. T is mercifully less mushy than the average woman, but even SHE sets her sites on dopey gifts when Valentine’s Day rolls around.
I’m trying not sound like any more of a sexist oinker than I absolutely have to here, but REALLY, when did women decide that flowers make a great gift? Chocolate I can sort of understand – everyone knows they put some sort of girl-specific and highly addictive narcotic in there, probably a crack derivative of some kind.
And, I suppose, even FLOWERS make some sort of skewed sense. They DO smell nice and look pretty. But seriously, if it weren’t for the fact that women like them, men would NEVER, ever, ever buy flowers. For the price of a couple dozen roses, a man can get himself a pretty good Friday night on the town, a circular saw, three Jackie Chan DVDs or a million other things men like WAY better than flowers.
Then there’s jewelry. From a woman’s standpoint, jewelry makes a lot of sense. Women in the early “pre-marriage” stages of a relationship especially like receiving gifts of jewelry. After all, it’s pretty (shows he has good taste), it’s expensive (shows how much he loves me), it’s expensive (shows my girlfriends how much he loves me), it’s expensive (indicates he makes enough money to support me in the style to which I would like to become accustomed), and finally, it’s expensive.
Jewelry isn’t so much a gift as it is a job interview. For married couples, jewelry is a bribe – a husband’s desperate attempt to get his wife to think of him the way she used to before he said “I do.”
Even so, there’s some twisted, feminine logic to jewelry.
That, however, brings us to the REALLY dumb Valentine’s Day gifts. I’m talking now about the gifts which make absolutely NO sense whatever. The gifts so dumb that to call them dumb gives the word dumb a bad name.
Gifts like … teddy bears.
OK. For 364 days out of every year, The Lovely Mrs. Taylor is a bright, no nonsense woman with little patience for foolishness. She’s practical, straight-forward, and has an almost military bearing … pretty much the exact opposite of me, in fact.
She likes things straight-edged, cleared away and orderly.
And yet, as Valentine’s Day approaches, she starts wanting things like, well, like teddy bears. Little, cutesy teddy bears holding hearts imprinted with sayings like “I Wuv You THIS Much!” or “I Can’t BEAR to be Without You!”
Excuse me while I cough up a hairball…
There, that’s better.
Despite years of closely observing women (TOO closely, according to the judge who issued all those restraining orders), I have yet to figure out why ladies over six years old are enamored of teddy bears.
You’d think that if Mrs. T wanted something on the chubby side with a lot of body hair, I’d be enough for her.
But apparently teddy bears have a “cuteness” factor which is noticeably missing in me. At this stage of the game, it’s probably too late to change that.
So I guess I’ll keep doing what I did this past Valentine’s Day; buy the candy, buy the flowers, buy the teddy bear. If she wants jewelry, the bear can buy it for her.
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