All In All I'd Sooner Fall Into a Vat of Chocolate - a Valentine Story
Posted: Friday, February 10, 2012
by John Brazell
In the beginning there was Marcus Hall.
Mark who was archetypical of the hairier sex — insensitive, uncommunicative and lacking in the fine art of romance — stayed mostly in his man cave. One day, over beer, nuts and football halftime he pondered. “How do I compensate for being a slug all year and get the little woman off my back?”
With crayons and a beer stained napkin, he fashioned a limp, lame card expressing his undying love and affection so long as a sport was not in season. That was one cold day in the middle of February.
The missus, having been ignored for the past 364 days was overcome with emotion and gratitude and declared, “This is so sweet. I feel so loved. This will always be a day to celebrate.”
Aha again. Mark, a peanut-fuel lobbyist, sensed a commercial opportunity.
If a mushy note can wipe clean a year of uninterrupted football, hockey, golf and ogling, then I’ve found the new gold standard. With his Xerox printer he made more cards and wrote more poems and added candy, books, jewelry and skimpy lingerie to his man-cave shelves. He hung a sign on the door, “Buy three and get your choice of a cassette by the Doo Wops singing the love song, ‘Elvira’ or Maurice Chevaliers’ ‘Thank Heaven for Little Girls’.”
And thus Mark Hall, thinking backward, created “Hall Mark.” The Hall’s became rich and famous, built stores, made movies and ate chocolate. In quick succession they spent a fortune on counseling, divorce, Jenny Craig, ,young lovers, marriage, counseling, divorce, and bought their own gifts on Valentine’s Day ever after.
That was then.
I held forth with my long time sweetie, SB, and relayed the depressing Hall Mark story.
I went on.
“Love is not gourmet bonbons, scarlet roses, dinner at the Ritz and a Tiffany’s debit card. It’s the deep emotional feelings we share; the little things. I rub your back and you rub mine. It’s laughter as you bake heart-shaped sugar cookies and I eat them. It’s touching and holding, tickling and giggling.
Valentine’s Day is a commercial venture contrived for people who feign happiness and assuage their guilt, awkwardly, on one prescribed day each year. It’s a montage of crowded restaurants, double the fare, tepid food, surly waiters, corny catch phrases, chocolate and fat babies flinging arrows.
I’m an old fashioned guy. Love and romance doesn’t follow a prescribed formula. Love is spontaneity, a kiss in a crowded elevator, a romp in the hay (not a metaphor) and a kaleidoscope of emotions crashing like waves against the sparkling sands of time.”
And on ...
“Love is wanting and needing. Love is blind. Love is holding each other as flames flicker in a fire pit and from your right to your left aorta (reversed if you’re left handed). ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ if you’re Ali MacGraw, Ryal O’Neal or a Kardashsian.”
Love is comforting, soft and cuddly, strong and sturdy, a band of gold, a bond of steel, except in a crowded restaurant, bistro, barbeque joint, or cafeteria.”
Roses are red
Bluebonnets are purple
The aura of you
Spins my head in a circle
Alas my love
In my heart you will stay
Please don’t make me go out
On Valentine’s Day
How am I doing? Have I convinced you yet?
And neither have I convinced SB. (...sigh...) Isn't take out pizza, with anchovies, meeting halfway, third of the way... no way? : )
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