Valentine’s Special: Let Me Be Your Rufus

Valentine's Day can be almost as perilous a holiday for a man as Thanksgiving is for a turkey. If you aren't careful, you just might lose your giblets.

What I mean by that is that the expectations placed upon a man to get Valentine's Day "right" are much greater than those on a woman. A man is expected to buy his wife chocolate or jewelry or flowers or all of the above.

The wife? All she has to do is show up.

Hopefully naked.

Preferably awake.

A perfect example of this inequity can be found by looking at Valentine's Day gift suggestions for men at gifts.com. Here are a few of the gems on the list:

• A tie (please, ladies...no ties).
• Annual subscription to the Pickle of the Month Club (are there even twelve different kinds of pickles?).
• The World's Largest Gummy Worm (and that is NOT a euphemism for an enhancement product).

So guys, all these expectations may have you feeling pressure leading up to Valentine's Day. Just like Ted "Theodore" Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esquire felt the pressure to pass their history final. Fail the final and Ted goes to military school and there is no Wyld Stallyns music to bring the universe into harmony. (By the way, two blog posts and two Keanu references. To quote Mr. Reeves, "whoooooa"). Your problem is you have no dude named Rufus traveling through time in a phone booth to guide you. Well, let me be your "Rufus" (sans phone booth).

Tip #1 - Too Late for Love: If you are doing your Valentine's

shopping at 6PM on February 14 at the Circle K, there will be more than "strange things afoot". There will be a foot in a high heel implanted in your backside. Don't be in the scrum of losers at the Kroger floral department fighting over the last wilted arrangement of tulips. Plan ahead…at least a little.

Tip #2 - Avoid the Self-Inflicted Wounds: If the only day a year you give your wife flowers is Valentine's Day, you are looking at $80. Let me do that currency conversion for you. Ten six-packs. Almost two full tanks of gas. Lunch for two weeks. Buying a big bouquet on Valentine's Day is for suckers and if you want to avoid that kind of punch to the coin purse then you need to bring your wife flowers more often than once a year. It may be too late for this strategery this year, but now you can plan ahead for next year. Sam's and Costco have a nice selection and proflowers.com has good deals at least 364 days a year. (Does anybody know how I can get a commission or product placement endorsement here?)

Tip #3 – Don't Forget to Wind Your Watch.

Tip #4 – Put the Greeting Card Back in the Rack and Slowly Walk Away: I hate buying greeting cards. You pay $5 for something a stranger wrote (and doesn't even have enough pride in their work to add a by-line to it). You give the card to your wife and it becomes obsolete as fast as the latest product from Apple (I don't guess the I-phone 8G will be in my mailbox anytime soon). You don't have to be Bill Shakespeare to compose your own love letters. A few simple hand-written notes for your wife hidden where she'll find them throughout the day is a can't miss hit she'll be sure to remember on Valentine's Day.

Tip #5 – To Lingerie or Not to Lingerie?: The "one and done" lingerie gift may not be your best option. First, you endure the awkwardness of shopping in Victoria's Secret (a topic for future blog to be sure). After five minutes on, it's tossed to the floor and then later crammed in the back of a drawer never to be seen again. If you do choose the lingerie route, stay classy San Diego. The wife probably won't appreciate something that would have been deemed inappropriate for a chick in a Duran Duran video.



Happy Valentine's Day to you and your "historic babe". Party on, dudes.

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