Valentine's Day sucks. I'm not just saying that because I am currently lacking a warm female body to snuggle up to (although that's no doubt a contributing factor). No, Valentine's Day sucks because it is the one holiday in which you're lucky if you break even. Actually, that only applies if you're a guy. At least with other holidays you have the the potential to get something tangible back. If you're EXTREMELY lucky, after shelling out a fistful of twenties for plant genitalia that'll be dead in a week, a ludicrously overpriced dinner, and whatever other financially crippling gifts are required of you, MAYBE you'll get to screw. Unless you're old and/or married, this is something you'll be getting on a semi-regular basis anyway, so what's the friggin' point?
It's not like those other, COOL holidays. On Halloween you get to dress up scary, traumatize little kids, and get candy (or get drunk on cool green punch). On the Fourth of July, you get to watch fireworks light up the sky (or get drunk on American beer). On Thanksgiving you get a huge turkey and get you feast until your belt bursts (or get drunk on a variety of wines). Then of course there's Christmas where you exchange gifts and wallow in the peace and love of your fellow human (or get drunk on eggnog). You can't forget New Year's, where everybody gets drunk (or reflects on the passing of another year). And then there are those minor holidays such a Labor Day, Martin Luther King Day, and President's day, where you AT LEAST get the day off work.
But VALENTINE'S DAY?? You don't get the day off, you don't get any presents, you can't even get drunk! The only cool thing that's EVER happened was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when a lot of men were freed from the shackles of the heinous tradition my Mr. Al Capone. It's just GREAT if you're a chick, though. That's the time of year guys jump through hoops for you (as if any other day was different), buy you expensive crap, and you just LOVE it. This all just sucks. If we got the day off, that would be something. Instead we have to suffer through it, and those fools who are trapped into this spiral of doom are blissfully unaware of the futility of it all. I should know. When Valentine's Day '96 rolled around, I was actually LOOKING FORWARD to buying nice stuff for my then-girlfriend-turned-evil-backstabbing-'ho. Thank God she didn't fleece me for TWO Valentine's Days. To be fair, though, my penultimate girlfriend, the schizo one, fleeced me ALL of the time, regardless of holidays.
That brings up a point, though. It seems that whenever we (meaning humans of BOTH genders) come in contact with members of the opposite, or, to be PC, the PREFERRED sex, the hormones that have thusfar served us by ensuring our health and correct bodily growth BETRAY us, violently attacking our nerual pathways and turning our brains to mush. What else can explain the pure irrationality of how we act when that sex thing enters the picture? Why do people cling to others that the KNOW are bad news? Why would someone ditch a perfectly good dude for some alcoholic high school dropout petty criminal drug abusing LOSER?? And how could the MORON who sees it coming continue to hold on to the hope that he's just imaginging it all and continue to really believe the chick's assurances that she still loves him?? What POSSIBLE reason can there be for him to put his VERY HEART on the proverbial railway tracks of DEATH when he can SEE a locomotive pulling 500 cars screaming toward him just because some chick says there is no train???
Brain rot, that's what it is. The complete decay of the cerebrum caused by hormonal imabalance. I figure that the level of your "commitment" to someone is in direct correlation to how far gone your brain is. (That's not say that those fuck-and-forget people are running on all four cylinders, either, but their brains are OK. They just get gonad rot.)
But I'm not bitter.
Speaking of rot, I just remembered an interesting experience I had in England. Since the Manchester Business School builing was partly a hotel with a few rooms set aside for graduate students, many business transients came through. Once I was heading down on the elevator (which had a tendency to announce EVERY floor as you went by) and this middle-aged broad got on. She was about 5'5" and thin, neatly adressed, and STANK worse than the dumpster behind a Sushi bar. Talk about major B.O.! I think she was Russian. Anyway, when we got the the third floor, two HUGE guys got on, and they aparantly knew the broad. These guys were about 6 feet each, and atleast 250 pounds each of fat and/or muscle. And guess what? THEY STANK TOO! I'll tell you what, my eyes were watering when that door closed, and since it was a small elevator, we were pretty much all squeezed together with me stuck in the rear corner. I couldn't breathe! That was, without a doubt, the WORST smelling situation I had ever been in. When the elevator FINALLY opened, and those people SLOWLY lumbered out, I can't tell you what a relief it was to get fresh air into my burning nostrils. That's a downside to Europe.
That's actually a metaphor for how Valentine's Day sucks. You figure it out.