The Smell of Cupid & Commerce

So February 14th is coming up on the calendar faster than John Q. Law in your rear-view mirror as you finish your third beer doing 120 in a stolen Ferrari. You don't say...well, Dr. Boogie has some advice on what you can do to avoid getting a swift kick from a fuck-me pump in your caboose.

The worst gifts, as per usual, always include (and are not limited to) appliances (vacuums and cooking acoutrements), plants (as opposed to flowers), and anything hardware-related (other than platinum, diamonds, gold and silver, natch).

Blue Nile's Top 10 Worst Gifts:

10. Vacuum
9. Paper Shredder
8. Electric Frying Pan
7. Crock-pot
6. Rug shampooer
5. Pencil sharpener
4. Ice scraper
3. Can of soup
2. Wisconsin cheese
1. Cold pizza

Cold pizza, of course, is a lousy V-Day gift, but if all goes well, it can be a great morning-after-V-Day gift, especially if your other half, like mine, loves cold pizza. Wokka wokka ;-)

Now for the most part, I think Valentine's Day should be from the heart (no pun intended), so giving a gift out of obligation is a sign of storm clouds on the horizon. If you're unable to procure that two-tone Cartier she's been wanting, it's one thing: but if giving her flowers and other items of romantica is a bothersome chore for you, it's time to move on. If she's an alumnus of Alabama and she loves Crimson Tide football, arranging a weekend to see them take on a rival school, at home, isn't an awful gift -- it's thoughtful -- so that's not so bad. But buying power tools instead of jewelry, no matter the dollars involved, is a recipe for disaster that will result in nothing but a sour taste that will last for days, if you're lucky.

The whole idea of Valentine's Day is to treat your significant other like the most important thing in your life, especially if he/she is; even if you try to do so every day of the year, February 14th is a nice opportunity to remind your SO how you feel. It's also an equally useful time to take stock of your own feelings for him/her and remind yourself why you're with him/her in the first place.

So if you're coasting through Bed Bath and Beyond and are thinking a pot rack would be a nice gift for V-Day, think again, and think of that high heel lodged somewhere that will require a (sic) crack surgeon to remove.

Oh, one final word of advice: buying a woman anything remotely having to do with exercise as a Valentine's Day gift will result in you doing some special hand exercises of your own. Proceed at your own risk.

As for Valentine's Day itself, dinner can be anything, from a local place with good wine and lighting to a full-on monster palace of sumptuous, luxurious foodstuffs; just make sure it's something special and that you let your other half know that you enjoy being with him/her. Going through the motions is a waste of time, and while plenty of people would rather do that than acknowledge how fucked-up going through the motions is, they aren't willing to wake themselves out of the slumber known as Real Life and revisit why they are with their SO in the first place.

And if for nothing else, it gives us a chance to thank the women in our lives for being there, for being wonderful, and for reminding us that, without them, life would suck. Drama-free, perhaps...but it would still, nonetheless, suck.

Good luck.

And stay away from Black and Decker until it comes time to re-do the garage.