Valentine's Day

-Is there any more ridiculous holiday than Valentine's Day? Naked cherubs and bows and arrows. Gangster massacres. Greeting card company heaven.

-My daughter loves this day and, yes, I get her, specifically, a box of some crappy chocolates, as the box is more important than the contents at her age (truth be told, my wife gets it for me). My boys could care less, though they write and give out their completely ambivilous and mutli-sex cards, so no one in their classes in left out. They have no idea, at their current ages, of the angst they will cause some girls in year's to come (and will have inflicted upon themselves as well) as they wait hopefully for a missive from one or another of my boys.
-This stretch of the year should better be known as the "throw away" holiday stretch. From Valentine's Day, for which there is, of course, no day off, to St. Patty's Day, which is merely an excuse to drink (and celebrate a guy who drove the snakes from Ireland - is that really worth celebrating?).                                                 -This holiday is all about collusion. The greeting cards companies, the chocolatiers, jewelry retailers (the cheap ones at least - you know the ones who advertise on television) and the restaurant owners get together to make (sexist input here) every man's life a living hell today. Maybe we should form a "player's association" and sue for a new collective bargaining agreement in which we agree to be nice a couple times a year, spontaneously taking our love interests to dinner or buying them a gift or two, but eliminating a specific date on which we have to pay for overpriced roses or stupid prix fix menus.
-Maybe cupid will just hit me with an arrow and put me out of my misery.
-That said, to my wife, I love you and do not need today to show you that.