Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Note: I’m pretty much making this an annual thing. If we’re going to assaulted with pinks and hearts and unicorns and wuggley-buggley-booszhy-booo! Sorry. Anyway, if St. Valentines Day keeps rolling around just as gaudy every year, I see no reason why I shouldn’t rebut just as repetitively. So, here it is, for those who find the whole thing tacky and banal; my sledge-fisted love letter to the incorporeal entity that inhabits many a person out there, filling their hate-bladder to bursting on this, February 14:

Ah, St. Valentine’s Day. Notice the “St.” part. That means there was once a person named Valentine who became a X-tian saint. How did he become a saint? Well, for one, he secretly married couples against the decree of the Roman Emperor, Claudius II. For this, he was beaten to death with clubs and had his head cut off, a fate that is symbolic of nearly everything that has ever happened to me on St. Valentine’s Day.

But I’m not here to bitch about me.
I’m here for you.
And by “you”, I mean those people for whom St. Valentine’s Day – or V.D., as my friend Lindsay calls it – is a shameful and bitter gauntlet of happy couples who inflict their saccharine brand of gropey-sweet, smoochy-smoothie ubercuteness on everyone. A day of reflection upon the ceaseless tide of sub-intellect and emotionally retarded jackholes who have made your love life the Hindenberg drama-o-rama that it is.
For you, I forge ahead. Only for you.

If it ever was a day intended for lovers, St. Valentine’s Day is no longer. It is now the providence of marketers; soulless, greedy, empty, walking ethical corpses who exist only in the realm of profits, and hew to them with the fixation and tenacity of undead zombies. It’s like Sweetest Day: a capitalist gang-bang, and the starting wide receiver is you, the lowly consumer.
You need look no further than the Larry The Cable Guy as Cupid Git-R-Done heart-shaped box of chocolates. (Yes, they really exist.) But if you must, there’s the cards, the flowers, the stuffed animal toys, and the not-so-subtle intimation that if you buy her a terrorist-financing diamond, for the rest of your life, she will drop down on you like your love-nub was made of French Perigold truffle and spurted the Elixir Of Life. Yeah. And Axe™ body spray makes fourth-tier actresses mosh-fuck you in the elevator.
And it’s worse for the women. All the tension and build-up leading to the big moment when your One True Love™ surprises you with heretofore unknown quantities of romantic panache, only to be let down at the last second. Again. Hmmm. Sounds like some… other… thing… ladies have to deal with. Oh well, I guess it’s not important.

Anyway, for those of you who find yourself alone on this day for lovers (of cheap, gimmicky, bullshit products that buying will do nothing but prove you’re a gullible asshole), take heart. Reread the above paragraphs, and remember: misery loves company. Find one of those obnoxiously high-on-life, pixie-dust-sprinkled couples with unicorn horns warming their spotless bungholes, and let them know what a shallow, tacky, pathetic display they’re putting on. Tell them that if they weren’t this in love yesterday, then they’re nothing more than sad little tools of consumer culture, witlessly following the bouncing dollar sign, lemming-like, down a primrose path devoid of any depth or meaning. Ask them if they shouldn’t reexamine their relationship if it takes some marketing ploy to get them to be nice to each other for a day. Exult as – even while they scoff at your bitterness – the doubt settles in, and their day loses it’s faux color and becomes the flavorless wad of cud that it truly is.

Then go home, watch When Harry Met Sally, and wish with every fiber of your being that you could be exactly like that couple: lame and happy. You bring the tissues, I’ll provide the ice cream.
Be strong, my little bitterbots. We shall all sell out some day. I did.
I love St. Valentine’s Day.