I know. I know. This is the part where
you think that I am going to condemn all the commercial aspects of Valentine’s
Day and how it is a made up holiday. And maybe back then when the world was
normal, you were probably right. I guess the thing that irked me so much about
the holiday was how little was done for men.
A guys was always expected to show up
with flowers, chocolates, jewelry, book the restaurant three months in advance
and make HER feel special. Now, I am not complaining about this because way
back in the day, I was this guy. I did these things. Okay, I didn’t do the
jewelry thing because I poor but you get my point.
What was the woman’s responsibility?
“I’ll wear something to show off cleavage at dinner and then I’ll give him
some.” That is it. So how is this different from your average Saturday night?
Those were the things that I did not think were fair. Dudes are rarely into
things like flowers. I think buying flowers is dumb because they are dead in a
week. But for Valentine’s Day, why couldn’t a woman grace her husband with a
nice bottle of scotch, a video game, or the latest DVD?
Wow.
I almost deleted the above paragraphs.
Because here I am bitching about something that is so nightmarishly irrelevant
in the world we live in now. Imagine John Q. Smith was running from a horde of
zoms, hauling his wife by the hand, and they come upon our store. And this
happens today. We let them in, hauling them through the Produce Door. We give
them food, water, safety and some Neosporin and a bandage for his wife’s scrape
that she got when she stumbled on the road. And then I sidle up beside him and
whisper to him, “It’s Valentine’s Day. Did you get your wife some chocolates?”
He would look at me like I was positively insane.
I mean is it all just distractions?
February is cold. The day is short. Maybe someone said, “Hey, February is
pretty miserable. Let’s put a holiday in there where women can get sparkly
gifts and the men get a little hibbity-dibbity. That should make everyone
happy, right?”
I guess one could argue that those
types of distractions are the ones that make life worth living. Otherwise, life
would just be a grind of work and bills. Without things like the NFL playoffs,
World of Warcraft, the new Brad Pitt movie, or running around looking for the
right Valentine’s Day gift for your wife, all of life becomes a grind. And
sometimes, it takes a complete and total collapse of civilization as we know it
to make us appreciate all those dumb and mundane things.
I miss those things. I really do. I
don’t necessarily miss her but I miss doing things like that for someone. I
guess the question is do you allow yourself to be vulnerable in the zombie
apocalypse. You know full well that anyone could be lost at any moment. The
same was true before all this went down… it just wasn’t in your face as much.
Life is precious. Maybe it is time for
me to quit being alone… Even if that makes me vulnerable.
