It Shoots Us.

We revile nothing more than Valentine’s Day. I’ve already received messages from friends with pictures of adorable little cupid impaled through the back with his own cherubic dart. I love these pictures because in addition to being a sick Visigoth of a man, I think it’s beyond funny that someone had a toddler pose for the photo, pretending to be dead. Invariably a fat dozen of these nasty little e-mails will drift in from friends and family. I can honestly (ha!) say that I do not know anyone who observes this day happily.

But there’s an obvious conundrum here.

According to statistics that I may or may not be pulling out of the ass of Buddy the Fact Mule, there are more dollars being spent in the United States on Valentine’s Day then there are people in the United States. To even it out, you would need to add in each person’s house pets, plus a good number of the people they dated in High School.It’s a lot – Buddy the Mule and I know that much.

So given that no one – including the women I know – thinks that Valentine’s Day is a good thing, why are we spending the unadjusted Net National Product of Paraguay on it?

Because we are liars – or at least we are unintentional liars. Nah, it’s on purpose.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that the lonely Internet Lilliputians who complain about it on blogs while playing Halo 2 probably do hate it. But they love to hate it so it works out. Twang! The bowstring snaps and the dart shoots into their greasy little hides, several pustules burst and the love of pitying self is born anew – spring in Angst Land!. I doubt that this is equal to getting laid, but what are the chances that they have anything to compare against?

The Hipper-Than-Thou demographic experiences a similar phenomenon, but for them it happens between expensive coffees and chats about the great book they just bought about awakening the spirit through abusing your endocrinologist, and how that book is environmentally and politically friendly since it is printed on the recycled remains of cigarette butts and Republican lobbyists. Then, in between snippets of remembering the New Earth seminar they co-chaired back in college they will blow out plumes of hot gas about that evil gremlin of the corporate world, Valentine’s Day. The corner of their mouths will turn up ever so slightly.

Twang! Condescension gets fluffed.

It works for really old-fashioned people who are required by law to have ritual sex every 14th of February.

No other group is immune; even the sickly in love among us will eschew the day because everyone (and they are quite militant about this) should demonstrate that level of affection all the time. Crazed as they are with dopamine and endorphins and having no blood in the cavity which houses their brain, if you disagree with them they will kill you with a book of their own poetry. Some part of your anatomy will then be romantically arranged among winter lilies and presented to their one true love as a gift. They feel so sad for those who need Valentine’s Day – thankfully their lives are not so bleak.

Twang. Well…they might swap a little more tongue, but these freaks are doing it like bunnies on crack anyway.

I don’t have much use for it either. This Valentine’s Day, my wife and I will commemorate the occasion by curling up on the couch and perhaps downing a good bottle of wine. With our child happily ensconced in her crib we might even warm up a little. Eventually, this will surely lead to us doing our back-taxes. Really, between us my wife and I have not filed a tax return since before the World Trade Center Attacks. Combined, that’s full eight years of flagrantly breaking federal law. I think that might be another column, though.

So given that there is no original or creative way to address this faux-holiday that is again thrust forth, I ask you to rebel by not mentioning it (or go on at length and say nothing). Then, go home, get drunk and do your taxes. It may occur to you that this silly little day is intended to be silly, but if that happens do the following;

1. Stop all movement and check your pulse immediately.
2. Drink a bottle of water, or some Red Bull or whatever trendy crap you slag down.
3. Sit and count to 10.
4. Meditate, but do not pray.
5. Repeat the following; “I am not less jaded.” 10 000 times.
6. Buy someone a card you predictable, post-modern gadfly.

By the way, as far as I know, there are no such things as winter lilies – I made them up.

Sorry.