Valentines's, Schmalentine's...

Well, it’s apparently Valentine’s Day. Doesn’t mean much to me, being that I still happily have my freedom – uh, I mean, I’m single…(adopt Jon Lovitz voice) yeah, that’s the ticket. But still, it’s kind of a ripoff. Let me explain… This had got to be the biggest commercial sell-fest “holiday” of the year next to Christmas. At least Christmas has a real meaning to it – something actually being observed – once you get past the commercialism. But Valentines Day is basically a day put on the calendar for companies to sell crap at inflated prices. Like a friend said to me the other day – prices on flowers go way up for the same thing you can get for half the price the week before or after. And who pays for this? Mostly men who have to fork it out to appease the other in their life who have been conditioned that they must receive something on this cold February day or the relationship is in trouble. It’s a scam, and I call Bullshit. Really, if you need a specially marked day on the calendar to remind you to do something to show that special person you love them, then you’re in bigger trouble than one day of corporate shelling can point out. I was reading around different web columns, and it was said that the average amount spent on Valentine’s was around $125. Think about that. That’s a lot of money blown on one day to feed the coffers of ripoff artists. With a little imagination, that money could be used to do something nice (small, but nice) every month all year long. Ten bucks a month to do something special…hmmm, let’s see, what could you do with that? Lunch at Tim Horton’s…hot apple cider at Williams Coffee Shop…two movie rentals at Blockbuster (Terminator 2 for him, Bridges of Madison County for her)…round of mini golf…a couple ice cream cones and a drive in the country…and these are just off the top of my head. And I bet the small things would go a lot further and mean a lot more with the time spent than one blowout ‘because I have to’ spending spree. Think about that before you shell out twice the price for flowers that’ll be dead before you even get the credit card bill…