THE SONIC BOOMER
Valentine’s Day is over, and I hope, for your own sake, that you remembered it.
Of course I am talking to the guys here. Women always remember Valentine’s Day. We have been shopping in stores that, since Dec. 26, have been swathed in red and pink. We have perused (and purchased) tons of cards, candles, frames, placemats, napkin rings, jewelry, key chains, stickers, wrapping paper and teddy bears. We have kept the card companies in business and have done our best with the post office.
Because women do not forget Valentine’s Day.
Women decorate their homes, their cars, their office cubbies and themselves. Women buy cards for their husbands, their children, their parents and their dogs. They buy them for aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, neighbors and the people at church. If the crossing guard looked lonely on Tuesday, women brought her valentines on Thursday. Women love the very idea of love and do their best to promote it.
Men… well, men remember March Madness. It has something to do with basketball but, being a woman, I’m not sure what.
But guys, for your own sakes, I hope you remembered Valentine’s Day. I hope that you noticed the heart-shaped cookies in the bakery, the red and pink cupcakes on the kitchen counter and the fact that every female in your office was wearing red or pink on Feb. 14. When bouquets of roses started arriving for your co-workers (each one met with a squeal of delight and immediate placement in a prominent location), I hope you did use the distraction as more than an opportunity to go outside and have a smoke.
Because the ramifications of forgetting Valentine’s Day can be ugly. In fact, St. Valentine himself may have been some kind of sadist, setting up innocent or distracted men for disaster.
It’s not that women expect expensive gifts (well, some do, but you want to stay away from the Kardashians), it’s that women want to know that you think of them occasionally. We think it should be easy to think of us if the word “LOVE!” is splashed across every store window and television commercial. When you think of love, do you not think of us?
That’s what we want to know.
But based upon my extensive knowledge of guys (I hear you laughing), I have learned that many of them do not go to stores and some do not even notice television commercials — unless, of course, large-breasted women are featured. (Women, take heart: Even if your guy leaves you for a large-breasted TV woman, he will no more remember to buy her a valentine than he remembered to buy you one.)
But, hopefully, he did remember to buy you one — or a box of chocolates or a bouquet of flowers or, I guess, a tattoo. Just a little something to say he cares. Just a little something to say he loves you and you have nothing to worry about.
Unless, of course, you notice that his favorite TV weathergirl is sporting a new tattoo.
Then you may have something to worry about. And I’m sorry.
