A Valentine For Sloggers
Valentine's Day
February has a lot to recommend it. It's short, for one thing.Once it's over we can begin to pretend that Spring is just around the corner. In most parts of the country that pretense is perfectly delusional. What's around the corner, and around the one after that, is melting slush and head colds.
February harbors Presidents' Day, but all it has to recommend it is a day off. Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is rich with the scents of chocolates and passion. Or it is if the chocolates work.
Married guys, except those in the clutches of some secret and unfulfilled sexual obsession, are seldom enthusiastic about the day. It means they will have to go shopping. Men don't like to go shopping. In particular they don't like to go shopping at the last moment, which they almost always do because they have forgotten what day it is.
They didn't know what to buy for Christmas and here it is Valentine's Day already! It makes them gloomy and dispirited. I met a friend sitting slumped on a bench in the mall. He was staring dejectedly at a small gift-wrapped box.
"We've been married twenty-seven years," he said. There was a long pause. "They don't give you that for murder."
Of course some women don't care for the day either. That is because their husbands believe that lingerie is the secret of a fulfilled sex life.
What these women have to look forward to on Saint Valentine's Day is a selection of improbable and uncomfortable undergarments that suggest bondage play rather than loving tenderness. They know with perfect certainty that as the highlight of Valentine's night they will have to strap, buckle and lace themselves into gear that is mostly straps, buckles, and laces, and parade around the house.
They will try to be understanding. But they will think, "We've been married twenty-seven years...they don't give you that for murder."
There are interesting Valentine's Day revenges. Some women have struck back by sending their husbands or sweeties barbershop quartets...to the office. The lunkhead is called to reception where he is met by four geezers in straw hats, who present him with a single perfect red rose.
The victim has to stand there, holding a rose and stupefied with embarrassment, while the old guys sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."
Valentine's Day Cards are nice, though. My favorites are the ones children used to send to one another in school. Every child had to bring enough cards so that every other child would get one when deliveries were made from the big heart-decorated box on Miss Pringle's desk. There were duckies and doggies and little plump boys and girls holding hands. They cost a penny.
Those penny Valentines had sincerity going for them. You could believe a duck. You could believe "Be Mine." They didn't promise much. Today's gold-and-red-paper extravaganzas, lavish with lace, and texts that cry out for deconstruction, have all the believable sincerity and depth of feeling of an old con's petition to the board of pardons and paroles.
Clearly, we need to return to this holiday's roots: The ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was held on February 15.
Well found lads lightly costumed as goats ran through the streets whacking pedestrians with strips of goat skin. The Romans viewed the goat as the embodiment of sexuality, although I've never understood the attraction myself.
All this funny business was intended to insure fertility and to fend off evil. It persisted well into the Christian era, after which it was all downhill...
Until the discovery of chocolate.
(All my own work...Originally published in The Desert Leaf)
February has a lot to recommend it. It's short, for one thing.Once it's over we can begin to pretend that Spring is just around the corner. In most parts of the country that pretense is perfectly delusional. What's around the corner, and around the one after that, is melting slush and head colds.
February harbors Presidents' Day, but all it has to recommend it is a day off. Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is rich with the scents of chocolates and passion. Or it is if the chocolates work.
Married guys, except those in the clutches of some secret and unfulfilled sexual obsession, are seldom enthusiastic about the day. It means they will have to go shopping. Men don't like to go shopping. In particular they don't like to go shopping at the last moment, which they almost always do because they have forgotten what day it is.
They didn't know what to buy for Christmas and here it is Valentine's Day already! It makes them gloomy and dispirited. I met a friend sitting slumped on a bench in the mall. He was staring dejectedly at a small gift-wrapped box.
"We've been married twenty-seven years," he said. There was a long pause. "They don't give you that for murder."
Of course some women don't care for the day either. That is because their husbands believe that lingerie is the secret of a fulfilled sex life.
What these women have to look forward to on Saint Valentine's Day is a selection of improbable and uncomfortable undergarments that suggest bondage play rather than loving tenderness. They know with perfect certainty that as the highlight of Valentine's night they will have to strap, buckle and lace themselves into gear that is mostly straps, buckles, and laces, and parade around the house.
They will try to be understanding. But they will think, "We've been married twenty-seven years...they don't give you that for murder."
There are interesting Valentine's Day revenges. Some women have struck back by sending their husbands or sweeties barbershop quartets...to the office. The lunkhead is called to reception where he is met by four geezers in straw hats, who present him with a single perfect red rose.
The victim has to stand there, holding a rose and stupefied with embarrassment, while the old guys sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."
Valentine's Day Cards are nice, though. My favorites are the ones children used to send to one another in school. Every child had to bring enough cards so that every other child would get one when deliveries were made from the big heart-decorated box on Miss Pringle's desk. There were duckies and doggies and little plump boys and girls holding hands. They cost a penny.
Those penny Valentines had sincerity going for them. You could believe a duck. You could believe "Be Mine." They didn't promise much. Today's gold-and-red-paper extravaganzas, lavish with lace, and texts that cry out for deconstruction, have all the believable sincerity and depth of feeling of an old con's petition to the board of pardons and paroles.
Clearly, we need to return to this holiday's roots: The ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was held on February 15.
Well found lads lightly costumed as goats ran through the streets whacking pedestrians with strips of goat skin. The Romans viewed the goat as the embodiment of sexuality, although I've never understood the attraction myself.
All this funny business was intended to insure fertility and to fend off evil. It persisted well into the Christian era, after which it was all downhill...
Until the discovery of chocolate.
(All my own work...Originally published in The Desert Leaf)
posted by Art Jacobson at 12:16 PM
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