Writing about Valentine's Day is the Russian Roulette of essay writing. Either you spin the chamber and luck out: no bullet. You are having a good year, and romance isn't going to make you want to blow your brains out. Or, of course, there's the alternative. Ka-blam! You just never know from year to year do you? And for you married folks, I apologize. I know that you've taken these vows about death parting ya'll and everything. But being a divorced mother of four, whose hubby left her ON Valentine's Day, well I am just not too sold on the exchanging of rings and vows being much of a safety net.
However, that's not to say that this is a bullet-in-the-chamber year, either. I have taken the yearly spin and fortunately come up empty. I am not, though, going to go all "Love is a many splendored thing," on ya'll, either. What I am wondering about, as I stare down another Valentine's Day's barrel, is: why all the chocolate? Yep. It always comes down to food, basically, doesn't it?
On the bullet years, chocolate makes perfect sense. That is to say, when there's no love to be had, I'm all about the candy. The first year sans hubby, I bought myself the biggest red velvet, heart-shaped box of chocolates I could find, wrote "To The Love of My Life" on the little card that came included with it, and gave it to myself. I ate every last one of those bad boys, and they were awesome. I knew what I liked, so had made sure to get the kinds that were mostly nuts & chews, and only a few of the weird creamy ones that can have odd flavors. I even allowed myself to take bites out of them first to check what they were, put back the ones that weren't my favorites, and saved the bitten ones for emergency purposes. That was a great box of chocolates.
The next year, an "unloaded year," I happened to be casually dating someone (ok, we had been out once or twice). You can probably guess what I did. Yep. I waited. It seems like we turn the V-Day into some kind of litmus test for relationships (I have always wanted to use the word litmus in a sentence, ever since I got a C in high school Chem. Class. I feel so much better now.) Anyway, I did that thing where we girls think, "If he is worth anything, he will call/send flowers/make a date/propose," depending on the length of the relationship, "because it's Valentine's Day." And then if his actions don't meet with expectations, BAM! We are back to bullet in the chamber status pretty quickly and the guy is history. Why? Because he is obviously "Not the one." But if he had failed to call, send flowers, make a date, or * heaven forbid * propose on any other day, it wouldn't have been any big deal, right? Well, you can guess what happened with the guy I was seeing. No call. Back to the bullet.
This all really doesn't answer the truly important question though, does it? Why chocolate? I think I know, though. Because Valentine's Day is mostly about women being miserable. Either we are miserable because we have someone, and he is clueless about what to do on this stupid day, or we don't have someone, and we are miserable because*well, we don't have someone. And either way, eating some chocolate is usually the way that women approach misery. It actually makes a lot of sense. This is why I had a great time the year that I just cut out the middle-man (so to speak) and gave myself the chocolates.
Men would probably be better off if they would just defensively buy chocolates and carry them around like emotional Kevlar throughout February. They could just keep heart shaped boxes of varying sizes: small ones, for daughters and neighbors; medium sized ones for mothers, the boss-if appropriate-, and maybe a new girlfriend that could appear on the scene*assuming the man is single of course, and the one mammoth, red velvet number. This would be reserved for that special moment...when he has totally forgotten Valentine's Day entirely and arrives home to find the wife (or girlfriend*fill in the blank accordingly) in tears, no dinner plans made, and his jammies and pillow have already been moved out to the doghouse (whether or not he was previously a dog owner). He can run out to the car, grab this lifesaving device, and proceed to buy some time while he announces that he is headed to the store to buy steaks and lobster fresh from the butcher, will be cooking AND doing the dishes, and the Love of His Life should be taking her bubble bath and enjoying some of those chocolates while he takes care of everything. Not to toot my own tuba too greatly, but I think everyone would be a lot happier with this plan, and we would be a few steps closer world peace. Ok, maybe not world peace. But there would be some chocolate for the girls and the guys would stay outta the doghouse.
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