The Specter of Valentine's Day

I do not like Valentine's Day . I didn't like it when I was single. I didn't like it when I was dating. I do not like it now that I'm married.

I dislike it only slightly less than Groundhog Day, which arrives tomorrow. Thank God that event falls on a Saturday, and I can sleep through all the dopey news bulletins about Puxatauny Phil.

You'd think I'd like Valentine's Day, though. I had one of those mothers who celebrated it by setting the dinner table with Russell-Stover chocolate hearts. She and my father used to buy mushy cards for each other after church the previous Sunday (my parents enjoyed buying each other greeting cards of all sorts).

But I truly believe Valentine's Day is a scam designed to make single people feel like total losers who should buy lots of products (or maybe just alcohol) to temporarily escape their loserdom. This probably has something to do with the memory of a so-called friend marching up to me on Valentine's Day 1984 and blurting, "You only think you're happy. You'd really be happy if you had a boyfriend."

I also believe Valentine's Day is a scam to sell cheap lingerie, the kind that taunts the wearer by creeping into her tenderest spots. By 7:30 PM, restaurants all over the US find themselves jammed with wiggling females too distracted to enjoy their fried calamari.

Now, I do have a friend who absolutely revels in Valentine's Day, but she is the type of person who enjoys cutting garlands out of contruction paper with her four-year-old.

Another friend, who's single, is a bit more creative:

Financial planner Bette Lynn Paez told me about a Valentine's Day party she and a bunch of single friends once threw. Every guest on their list had to a) be single, and b) bring along an unattached friend of the opposite ***.

To get conversations started, all of the attendees wore labels listing the last movie they'd seen or the location of their last vacation. I thought, wow, what a brilliant idea. Talk about taking a crappy Hallmark holiday and making it work for you.
As for Peter and me, we make it work for us by lying low until it's over. It goes without saying that we haven't joined the growing crowd of homeowners with inflatable hearts and teddy bears on their front lawns.