“The Fine Print”, by M.H. Schrader

Another St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

(Originally published in the Neighborhood Journal, 19 February 1997. Posted in toto with Preface and Epilogue, 3 October 2002.)

PREFACE -- Looking back, I think that this is my best column, and it is my favorite. When I faxed it in, I immediately got a call from the female editors who said they couldn’t stop laughing. I had verbalized what every man thinks.

The day before Valentine’s Day, 1997, Little Rock got a rare snowfall. Unlike in the North, where a snow day is just another day, snow in the South brings life to a halt, as it is such a rare event there is neither equipment nor drivers able to handle it. Thus, because of the snow, I was unable to go out shopping for Valentine’s Day.

I don’t really know who invented the St. Valentine’s Day holiday. However, if I was to venture a guess, I’d say it was a woman. Why? I don’t know any man that is masochistic enough to want to put himself through the torture of Valentine’s Day every year, so it must have been concocted by a women hell-bent on a modicum of revenge for at least one day a year. And whoever it was was a certifiable genius/fruitcake, as Valentine’s Day is the most agonizing, torturous day of the year.

If your a man, it doesn’t matter if you are married or single, attached or unattached, young or old, black and white, rich or poor. The torture extends across all ethnic, economic, marital, and social classes of men. Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas on the miserability index. (At least on Valentine’s Day, you don’t have to play nice-nice to people you really can’t stand but you feel obligated to because they bought you presents.)

In my thirty some-odd years of life, I cannot remember an enjoyable Valentine’s Day. (Come to think of it, I can’t recall enjoyable Christmases, either, but that’s another story.) When I was just a wee lad in elementary school, for example, I always knew that I would get Valentines from the obnoxious, ugly girls and not a one from the girls I had crushes on. I would naturally be quite disappointed.

To top off my utter disappointment, I would have to hear the typical mom “make the kid feel better spiel.” You know the one--”The ugly ducking turned out to be a beautiful swan; these girls will be knockouts when they get to high school, you’ll see.” Yeah, right, Mom.

You know, looking back in retrospect, Mom was---totally and completely wrong! The ugly ducklings I knew when I was a kid did not turn into beautiful swans; they turned into ugly ducks. And what’s worse, what they lacked in looks, they did not make up for in personality. (Another common Mom-ism.)

When I got to high school, things got better--I didn’t get ANY Valentines. Which was really good considering that I attended an all-boys high school. I think I probably would have looked at my classmates a little strange, if you know what I mean.

College was when the sadism of Valentine’s Day really smacked me upside the head with a two-by-four (and a hardwood one at that!). Valentine’s dances were a downer, except for the fact that I was the disk jockey and was getting paid to be there. For it would be after these dances, and many others like it, that I would hear the words that every male (okay, maybe not every, but a whole lot) fears the most--”You’re a good friend, but...” I spent my college years with lots and lots of girl friends but no girlfriend. Not only did I not have a girlfriend, but I felt like Jon Arbuckle in the “Garfield” comic strip (although I did know how to dress)--I couldn’t get a date for the life of me. Four dates in four years--what a record! Needless to say, Valentine’s Day was a real downer, as I did not have a Valentine, although I really, really wanted one.

I thought, incorrectly, that getting married would finally solve my Valentine’s Day woes. It did not solve them; it only changed them. Now the problem has become that Mrs. Schrader expects me to buy her Valentine’s cards and gifts to prove to her how much I love her. And, of course, I’ve always argued, to no avail, that my love cannot be measured by cards and presents. To her, this argument is merely a cheap cop out.

What’s worse, though, is that when I do buy her cards and gifts, she thinks I’m doing so only because I feel obligated to and not because I really want to. She’s both right and wrong; I want to buy her presents, but I feel obligated to buy them on February 14 because the folks at Hallmark have told us that that is the one and only day of the year for love.

This year continued my Valentine’s Day blues. Same old story. I do have to admit that I did not buy my wife a Valentine’s Day card, which all married men know is a big no-no. It’s not that I forgot, because I didn’t. I just didn’t find a really good opportunity to go out and buy one. And the 13th was not a good day to be out driving the streets in search of a Valentine, although much of the snow had melted by late afternoon. I did take Mrs. Schrader out to dinner, but, since we were dining with the three girls, it didn’t quite have the romance that she was looking for.

But, we are now past the dreadful day, and so things are beginning to look up in the Schrader household. And, as disastrous as this Valentine’s Day was, it still pales in comparison to February 14, 1990, my most memorable Valentine’s Day.

In 1990, I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee, and my wife was living in St. Louis. (I was finishing up a degree at the University of Tennessee). As a diversion, I was working one night a week from midnight to 3 in the morning as a disk jockey at the campus radio station. It just so happens that Valentine’s Day that year fell on that night.

Me and my wife had had a terrible fight on the phone, so I was not in a romantic mood when I went in to the station. I announced that since my Valentine’s Day had been lousy, I was going to play anti-love songs. The switchboard lit up--with requests. By the end of the night, I felt much better--after all, misery loves company.

Well, it’s a little over 350 days to next Valentine’s Day. Maybe, just maybe, my luck will change. If not--well, I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.

EPILOGUE -- Valentine’s Day 1998 was not any better. It isn’t very romantic is when you call your wife from a borrowed cell phone to report, “Honey, I just wrecked the van!”

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All contents & “The Fine Print” © 2002 by Michael Schrader.