Beer Commissioner Speaks on Valentine's Day
The Beer Commissioner seriously dislikes made-up holidays. A made-up holiday basically means you still have to go to work, and you have to spend money on crap you otherwise had no intention of spending money on. Valentine's Day is such a holiday. Last year I wrote a blog on how men get shafted at Father's Day. Valentine's Day is no different.
There is an important difference between Mother's Day/Father's Day and Valentine's Day. The Mother's Day/Father's Day dynamic is simple. People make no bones about men getting shafted on father's day. It is a given. It is as certain as the sun rising in the East.
Valentine's Day is an organized conspiracy that starts in pre-school and continues throughout life. I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't realize I was a victim of the Valentine's Day conspiracy until this year, but never again.
To fully understand the conspiracy, you must understand the history of Valentine's Day. As with any great conspiracy against men (Valentine's Day being one, having to buy a woman an engagement ring being the other), you need to find the original male sell-out. In the case of Valentine's Day, we have to go all the way back to the 3rd Century. Emperor Claudius II noted that single male soldiers fought better than married male soldiers, and issued a decree that young men were not permitted to marry. (Claudius was a genius--it is perfectly acceptable to be married, just not when you are young). Enter, our dear friend, a priest named Valentine, who thought this was a huge injustice and married young lovers in violation of Claudius's decree. Valentine was eventually found out, executed and/or martyred, depending upon your bent, canonized, and here we are, 1750 years later.
The obvious question, why is this a conspiracy? The answer is really quite simple. These guys were getting married to avoid serving in the army. Valentine was facilitating draft dodging. So, somehow we get from a draft-dodging scheme to buying teddy bears, pajama grams, diamonds, roses at $100 a dozen, and dinner for our women. You can only connect those dots with a good old fashioned conspiracy.
I can prove it too. The indoctrination starts when the kids are young. Last week, the little deputy brings a note home from school. He is supposed to bring a treat and Valentine cards for his class in pre-school. So we bought these little cards. They say be my valentine, etc., etc. The little girls give the little boys the little cards and the treats. The little boys say, "wow candy!", munch it down in one gulp, then run around the pre-school for 30 minutes on a sugar high, then pass out for nap time. The little cards are discarded as soon as the candy is discovered. The little girls on the other hand, they take the cards home. They have their moms read them the cards, then they put the cards in a little book. They see the cards from the little boys that say, Love, from the Little Boy, and swoon. The Little Boy has no clue that he has just perpetuated the conspiracy. The little boy's mom told him to write Love on the card, so he did it. This process is repeated every year until high school. Every valentine's day, the little boys get chocolate, run around and take a nap, lying in a dormant state, until they have their first girlfriend in high school. Then Dr. Quinn medicine woman is on tv explaining to them if they don't buy a damn heart neckless from Kay Jewelers, they don't really love their woman. Then, the girlfriend shows the guy the little book she's been keeping since pre-school with your 'love' notes, and you are guilted into buying the Dr. Quinn medicine woman double hearted necklace.
I didn't realize the extent of the conspiracy until this year, until I heard that women buy 85% of all Valentine's Day cards. That's when it occurred to me. I never buy a card. I never buy the little kid cards for school. But, I always get a card.
The commercials are a smoke screen. Yes, we are still supposed to buy the diamonds, the roses, the Vermont teddy bears, the pajama grams and dinner. This is all under the guise of, if we don't do it, we don't love them. We are guilted in to it. In reality, this guilt is just a ruse to muddle our brains so that we don't discover the conspiracy, now over 1750 years old, that St. Valentine wasn't running around shooting Eros' arrows at love sick children. He was facilitating draft dodgers, and someone, someone we will never know, turned it into a 1750 year old cottage industry of giving girls absurdly expensive presents in exchange for a greeting card.
There is an important difference between Mother's Day/Father's Day and Valentine's Day. The Mother's Day/Father's Day dynamic is simple. People make no bones about men getting shafted on father's day. It is a given. It is as certain as the sun rising in the East.
Valentine's Day is an organized conspiracy that starts in pre-school and continues throughout life. I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't realize I was a victim of the Valentine's Day conspiracy until this year, but never again.
To fully understand the conspiracy, you must understand the history of Valentine's Day. As with any great conspiracy against men (Valentine's Day being one, having to buy a woman an engagement ring being the other), you need to find the original male sell-out. In the case of Valentine's Day, we have to go all the way back to the 3rd Century. Emperor Claudius II noted that single male soldiers fought better than married male soldiers, and issued a decree that young men were not permitted to marry. (Claudius was a genius--it is perfectly acceptable to be married, just not when you are young). Enter, our dear friend, a priest named Valentine, who thought this was a huge injustice and married young lovers in violation of Claudius's decree. Valentine was eventually found out, executed and/or martyred, depending upon your bent, canonized, and here we are, 1750 years later.
The obvious question, why is this a conspiracy? The answer is really quite simple. These guys were getting married to avoid serving in the army. Valentine was facilitating draft dodging. So, somehow we get from a draft-dodging scheme to buying teddy bears, pajama grams, diamonds, roses at $100 a dozen, and dinner for our women. You can only connect those dots with a good old fashioned conspiracy.
I can prove it too. The indoctrination starts when the kids are young. Last week, the little deputy brings a note home from school. He is supposed to bring a treat and Valentine cards for his class in pre-school. So we bought these little cards. They say be my valentine, etc., etc. The little girls give the little boys the little cards and the treats. The little boys say, "wow candy!", munch it down in one gulp, then run around the pre-school for 30 minutes on a sugar high, then pass out for nap time. The little cards are discarded as soon as the candy is discovered. The little girls on the other hand, they take the cards home. They have their moms read them the cards, then they put the cards in a little book. They see the cards from the little boys that say, Love, from the Little Boy, and swoon. The Little Boy has no clue that he has just perpetuated the conspiracy. The little boy's mom told him to write Love on the card, so he did it. This process is repeated every year until high school. Every valentine's day, the little boys get chocolate, run around and take a nap, lying in a dormant state, until they have their first girlfriend in high school. Then Dr. Quinn medicine woman is on tv explaining to them if they don't buy a damn heart neckless from Kay Jewelers, they don't really love their woman. Then, the girlfriend shows the guy the little book she's been keeping since pre-school with your 'love' notes, and you are guilted into buying the Dr. Quinn medicine woman double hearted necklace.
I didn't realize the extent of the conspiracy until this year, until I heard that women buy 85% of all Valentine's Day cards. That's when it occurred to me. I never buy a card. I never buy the little kid cards for school. But, I always get a card.
The commercials are a smoke screen. Yes, we are still supposed to buy the diamonds, the roses, the Vermont teddy bears, the pajama grams and dinner. This is all under the guise of, if we don't do it, we don't love them. We are guilted in to it. In reality, this guilt is just a ruse to muddle our brains so that we don't discover the conspiracy, now over 1750 years old, that St. Valentine wasn't running around shooting Eros' arrows at love sick children. He was facilitating draft dodgers, and someone, someone we will never know, turned it into a 1750 year old cottage industry of giving girls absurdly expensive presents in exchange for a greeting card.
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