2.19

As I settled into my cavernous lair, my arched hands prepared to write an utterly excoriating diatribe about the soulless, materialistic excuse for an unholiday that is "Valentine's Day," I encountered what would appear to be an insurmountable obstacle: I write for Friday. VD is Thursday. Christopher Lloyd and DeLoreans aside, the time-space continuum seems to have my number yet again (it's 17i, for those curious).

Well, damn. I was prepped, too! I was gonna be all "love is pretty ok" and "money as a substitute for love is not even ugly ok, it's practically pretty ugly ok" and "pants are pretty much money without the cool pictures of presidents." Good times. Or they would have been. Had they ever existed!

Now, the time to move on has come. There is a very distinct, two day window each year where I can go all Henry David Thoreau on your collective rears and utterly dismiss materialism like it was a Kucinich presidency: Christmas and Valentine's Day. Outside of those two days, nothing I'd write would have any relevance.

It's kinda like the chicken pox. You're a kid, eating glue and beginning to suspect that this whole "reading" nonsense is, at best, highly suspect (and, at worst, downright icky). And then, one day, red itchy dots appear all over your body. Bam! You're out of school for, like, a week (which is, by my English-enhanced math, 24% of your lifetime thus far, so, like, forever), and you never worry about it again.

Love, relationships, and the maintenance thereof are the same way. You catch it from someone else, you scratch awhile, your mom yells at you, bumps goes away, happily ever after. Well, I guess that doesn't explain the undeniably perennial nature of Christmas and Valentine's Day... Ok, so replace "chicken pox" with...um... well I don't call it VD for nothing! In which case every so often you buy something to make the rash go away, and then you're gold.

Anywho, point being, expressing love is seasonal, at best. If you forget about relationship maintenance, all you have to do is wait to be prompted. Kind of like drunk driving or autism or pancreatic cancer: as long as it's someone else's problem (or someone else's friends/family), it's perfectly alright to ignore it. When it's your friend/family/self, well, then you can get irritable and wonder why no one will donate money, join your weekly meeting group, or give even a singular damn. But by that time, well, you're only in it for the lolz anyway.

I mean, it's only logical, people. You care about things when prompted. The only reason we watch TV is because commercials prompt us. The only reason we read books is because professors make us. The only reason we systematically eliminate hobos is because they ask for it. It's practically science.

Now, for the sake of honest discussion, I have heard that "some" people, and I won't name names (because I didn't care enough to learn them), enjoy doing those sorts of things in and of themselves. Reading a book of one's volition sounds downright stupid to me, but so does the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," so go figure.

In fact, to this day I can safely attest that I have never heard of anyone claiming that expressing their profound feelings of devotion and affection to a loved one is something they find enjoyable. I've never even imagined someone enjoying acting upon such feelings, as everyone knows cooperation, communication, respect, and compromise rank right up there with "electrified genitals" and "losing to Florida" in terms of torturous experiences.

You'd have to be pretty screwed up to love and actively care for somebody year round, without even the slightest trace of coercion. Fortunately, we still have holidays to provide us ample quantities. So consider this your prompt: enjoy this blessed respite from having to care while it lasts. After all, Christmas is less than eleven months away!