Unky League says "Don't Forget: Thursday is Valentine's Day!"

Boy, Valentine's Day!  Who doesn't just LOVE Valentine's Day?

I am guessing many of us just got done paying off most of the Christmas bills, and now its time to buy yet another thing for your significant other.  Great.  She's a wonderful dame.  She deserves the world.  Unfortunately, most of us are both tapped out of money and ideas here at the mid-point of February.

And, let's be honest, when we say that we need to be thinking of something for our significant other - for those of us straight dudes with a straight lady, we know that it really means we're expected to buy something expensive for our straight lady friend, but we aren't getting @#$%.

I know that in other arrangements, things differ, but I have never, ever heard anyone of the female persuasion in a relationship with someone of the male persuasion pondering anything on V-Day except where they want to go to dinner and when.

For the lady's, there's no cursing the price of flowers or candy.  There's no last minute run to the grocery to see if they have some roses or a pink teddy bear that says "I Wuv You!" stitched on the stomach.

I've been with Jamie since the first Clinton administration, and I think the last time I got something other than a card was maybe during the second Clinton administration.  I don't even get candy.*

There's, of course, THE BIG LIE of Valentine's Day, which occurs when your significant other waves her hands and says "seriously, don't get me anything!".  But, seriously, we don't want to find out what would happen if these orders were not belayed by the conscientiousness first officer who seizes control of USS Your Brain and drives you into a whole Crimson Tide scenario in your head.  "This message isn't complete!  We lost contact!  If we fire the missiles, we're starting World War III!!!".

The whole point of being told "I don't want anything" seems to be that, by gum, you love her so much you're ignoring her orders and forcing flowers into her dainty hand and a box of Russel Stover into her gut.

So, every year we listen to Denzel, and you get something.  And we get a card.

It's fine.  After Christmas, I don't actually want a shirt or socks or whatever I'd get that wouldn't be chocolate.    

The whole holiday becomes a weird bit of stress for single-folk and those who are in a fragile and new enough position to worry about being single folk again if there's one false move, and, of course, the folks who look at the coming of Valentine's Day as a moment of truth and realize they don't want to be with that person they're dating here on Valentine's Day, that a night at home with Netflix and Kraft Mac & Cheese is preferable to whatever is happening here.

For those of us for whom V-Day is no measure of much of anything, it's sort of like buying new tires on time.  You know you need to just spend the money on a routine basis, sort of pretend like you know what sort of tires are actually going to work when the salesman is telling you about great deals, and if something else goes wrong later, hey, you did the thing to make sure you had decent tires.

I have a strong feeling this post is going to go over extremely poorly with Mrs. League.

Late Edit:  I should note - Jamie is not exactly a "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" kind of lady.  This is the crazy fire drill I run in my head every Valentine's Day.

*Doubly so as I'm trying not to give myself Type II Diabetes, so I don't really want candy in the house.