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9 Ways to Prevent Your Own Valentine’s Day Massacre

February 1, 2021

Let’s face it. Valentine’s Day is the cruelest of Hallmark-induced holidays, practically guaranteeing a crappy outcome. Either you’re single and confronted with the perception that there’s something wrong with that, or you’re attached and no matter what you do, it will not be “romantic” enough.

Since romance can be largely attributed to the hormonal rush you feel at the beginning of a relationship, if you’re a few or many years in, you’re basically screwed. Or not screwed, really, since this is a day where the pressure is so high to live up to an imagined standard, it fairly defines the term performance anxiety.

Please allow me to help you navigate this minefield with these handy tips.

1. Size matters. One year my hubby ordered from an 800 number and his order got switched with someone else’s. I got 3 roses delivered to the office while another woman got my 2 dozen. Imagine that guy’s surprise when she called to thank him. Was he psyched not to look like a cheapskate? Did he send her 3 because they’d only slept together once? Did she think he was trying to tell her he was madly in love with her? Was he really just making a friendly gesture? That’s the stuff of sitcoms.

My point is that 3 roses don’t scream “I think you’re hot.” They more likely whisper something like, “Thank you for ignoring my chancre.” Bigger is better, guys. And don’t order from an 800 number. Not ever.

If Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday:

2. Do not turn your gift into more work for your sweetheart. Monday through Thursday, send them in a vase. Otherwise, she’ll have to spend part of her workday locating a vase and sawing at the stems with office shears to cut them to fit it, then cleaning it all up. Work.

If the date falls early in the week, you’re golden. She gets maximum jealousy from her coworkers and they’ll die by Friday—the roses, not the coworkers—so she won’t have to carry them home. Problem solved.

On a Friday afternoon, send them in a box with the little water condoms on them so they won’t dehydrate at her desk. You’ll be making her bring the box home like a UPS guy, but at least she won’t be taking public transit or driving with a sloshing bowl of roses. This is precisely when the flowers stop being a gift and start being a reminder of how thoughtless you are for not foreseeing this problem.

3. You must always send roses. Always. Don’t listen if she tells you not to. Even if she means it, she will feel ripped off. Even if she’s so allergic that she lives in a bubble, she will still want to look at them and touch them through her rubber glove.

But:

4. Do not attach balloons to the bouquet. Although they may look cute on the website, these things should be reserved for invalids in the hospital. And they’ll hate you for them, too. And while we’re on this subject, suffice it to say, the only gift you should give her that comes in a mug is a cup of coffee.

5. Don’t forget the chocolate. Even if she’s diabetic, you will be expected to get her one of those cute little boxes with two truffles so she can have a taste. Hopefully, you’ll remember if she’s diabetic, because nothing ruins a romantic evening like an impromptu coma.

There are additional rules that apply if Valentine’s Day falls on a weekend. Take heed:

6. You must spend the entire day with her. No Xbox, no war porn on the History Channel, no car magazines. Not for one minute. You must stare lovingly into her eyes all day. Don’t think you can get sneaky if she’s blind. She will sense your inattention.

7. Buy her jewelry. You’re in a bind here. It’s unrealistic for her to tote flowers and candy into the office on Monday to show and any tale she tells of a toe-curling weekend of romance will be suspect. (Trust me on this. No one will believe it.) Jewelry is the only proof, so make it good. Remember every carat adds an inch to your wang.

If you don’t have that much scratch and you know her birthstone or favorite color, you can get her something semi-precious and save a bundle. You’ll also look like a hero for being so thoughtful. See how listening when your loved one drones on about herself can benefit you? If not, don’t try to fake it by calling and asking one of her friends. She’ll tell her immediately. We’re bitches.

And here’s one for the ladies:

8. Do not give your man “love coupons.” It may seem cute and sexy to give him things that say stuff like “Good for One Massage with Happy Ending.” In reality, they’ll just sit around until your mother finds them when she comes for a visit…or worse, he’ll try to redeem one and make you feel like a prostitute.

A final tip for everyone:

9. Do things for each other all the time. The saddest thing about this stupid holiday is that it assumes we need a specified day and way to recognize our loved ones. The inference is that we must be directed to appreciate them on one day of the year or we won’t do it at all. Or that we don’t need to. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, even Administrative Professionals Day–aren’t they a little offensive? If we care, don’t we care all the time? If we don’t, then these holidays are all about faking it. No wonder Valentine’s Day sucks so much.

There now, didn’t that sound like an After School Special? I think that’s the name of one of those coupons.

More Valentine’s Day advice:
Pimp Your Vajajay on Valentine’s Day!

3 Uses for September Vogue

August 20, 2008

Like all good citizens, you are grateful to all the trees who gave their lives to create your fabulous Fall Fashion issue of Vogue. You want to do your part to make the world a more beautiful place. Go beyond the boring dictates of “reduce, reuse, recycle” with these super new ways to give back:

1) Weapon

Create a real fashion emergency when you swing this 798-page tome at a poorly dressed person. Why send fashion faux pas to Stacy and Clinton at What Not to Wear when you can send them directly to the hospital?

(Tip: Grip the magazine in both hands, above your head, and bring the bound edge down hard to work your triceps and incur maximal head trauma.)

2) Insulation

Show your concern for your fellow man by giving your copy to a homeless man, who can crumple the pages and stuff them inside his clothes for warmth. You’re helping mankind while finding the only way anyone will actually wear those crazy, astronomically expensive outfits. Way to keep him in vogue, girlfriend!

3) Sustenance

Are you hoping for a lucrative career in modeling? Once you’re done reading about that fat pig Keira Knightley, you can stave off your hunger by eating her photos. Remember to chew them slowly, though, with lots of diet soda, so they won’t scratch on the way back up. (Save one to tape in the toilet bowl for extra incentive.) And since fall fashion is all about color, your laxative-induced ass gruel will look pretty, too. Good luck!

5 Lessons from Customer Service

August 1, 2008

To give you a little background on my expertise, I can tell you that during my professional career, I’ve made sandwiches, cleaned toilets, sold health food and hawked plastic surgery.

Amazingly enough, the plastic surgery patient has much in common with the health food store customer—one wants to stay young forever from the inside out, the other from the outside in. Both are pretty crabby as a result.

As for the lesson to take from being a sandwich maker and toilet cleaner? Since it was the same job, I can tell you this: disgruntled minimum-wage earners rarely wash their hands.

That said, let’s dive into today’s lessons, shall we?

1. Keep a straight face.

I learned this my first day of training in customer service at Kinney Drugs when I was 16 years old. An impossibly wizened old man appeared, slapped a pack of condoms on the counter and gave me a sly grin that still held a mossy tooth or two.

The woman training me actually dropped to her knees under the counter, shaking with laughter. I rang him up and got him “a pack of them Pell Mells,” as he put it. I never cracked a smile, but I did correct his pronunciation. I don’t think he cared.

2. Anticipate stupid questions.

Patient before plastic surgery: “Will I sleep until I wake up?”
Answer: “Yes, what will happen is you’re sleeping, you’re sleeping, then, boom, you’re awake.”

Customer at health food store: “Do you sell organic chicken?”
Answer: “Actually, all chicken is organic. We don’t sell cyborg chickens here.”
(Hah! That one was a trap. Were you paying attention? The correct answer is “yes.”)

3. Be prepared with helpful advice.

At the health food store’s vitamin counter, customers came to me with questions regarding their digestive health. Apparently, this had become an issue requiring attention although colons had been chugging along with no need for heroic measures for quite a long time.

One of these concerns had to do with toxins accumulating if a person’s bowels were not evacuating at a healthy rate. I mulled this over and found the perfect answer for those wanting to observe their own ‘intestinal transit time’: “Eat some corn.”

This always stopped customers in their tracks, perhaps because it reminded them of exactly what they were seriously discussing with a relative stranger, or perhaps because it was an ingenious idea. Either way, I think I helped a lot of people.

4. Remain professional at all times.

At the store, I interviewed an applicant for a promising career in the produce section. At first, I was put off by his t-shirt depicting a naked woman bound and stretched over a large wheel. Perhaps he hadn’t planned his wardrobe and had just spontaneously walked in to apply. Then I saw the button pinned to the shirt: “I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick.”

It seemed imprudent of this young man not to survey himself prior to entering the store and realize that it might be a good idea to take the button off and put it in his pocket for the duration of his interview. I’m all for freedom of expression, so I finished speaking with him and ushered him out the door telling him we would call if he got the job.

A few days later, he showed up yelling that he couldn’t understand why we still had an ad in the paper. As customers gathered, I tried to explain, “This is how interviews work. Some people get the job and some people don’t. It’s not automatic.” Our security guard helped him exit as he called me some names.

I consider this a failure on my part. I was unable to educate him about the process. The story does have a happy ending; a few weeks later, I saw him handing out flyers. I was gratified that he’d found a job and I quickly crossed the street.

5. Know when it’s time to leave.

At some point, it will dawn on you that now might be the time to look for another line of work.

At the plastic surgeon’s office, it came when I collected payment from a man scheduled to have liposuction. As he left, he said, “I feel lighter already!” to which I responded, “That’s just your wallet!”

At the health food store, it came when I toyed with the idea of creating a T-shirt that summed up my feelings quite nicely: Get laid and eat a cheeseburger, you pasty-faced maggots! It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

Class dismissed.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint – Don’t Breed!

May 8, 2008

I have wondered what legacy I will leave behind, having borne no children. There is the unsung heroism of not passing on my own unpalatable genetic soup to future generations. (Since women in my family tend to start menopause young, I see Mother Nature as a lifeguard trying to hustle us out of the pool.) But really, other than money, time to travel, intact abdominal muscles, an unscathed perineum and the same complement of stretch marks since puberty, what’s in this childless lifestyle for me?

I have found the answer! By remaining childless, I have reduced my carbon footprint to the tune of every generation of progeny who might have continued to breed until global warming requires the evolution of gills. By my reckoning, I have earned the carbon footprints of all those unborn children. This is the ultimate carbon offset—I can drive an SUV to the catalogue-choked mailbox at the end of my driveway, charter flights to fly in circles with loads of bricks just to burn fuel and roll flaming rubber tires into the rainforest without guilt. It’s a free pass!

In fact, since the only thing I will leave to posterity is my carbon footprint, I’d like to make it as large as possible. And I’d also like to offset that big dark imprint on the posterior of the next person who assumes that every woman must want to have children or that the world can be saved by wearing vegan shoes.

While we’re at it, what the heck is a “vegan shoe”? Does it not eat meat?

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