"SOMETHING TO PONDER ON VALENTINE'S DAY"

"SOMETHING TO PONDER ON VALENTINE'S DAY"

BY CATMAN

Of all of the words in the English language, perhaps the one word that is the most difficult to get a handle on is L-O-V-E. (We pretty much all know the meaning of the other 4-letter words.) LOVE is very difficult to define. Even Webster's Dictionary has a really lame definition.

That is just one of the things I have been pondering on this Valentine's Day.

I just don't get it! Any of it! Who exactly was this St. Valentine character anyway that they named an entire day after him? I asked 16 people and no one seemed to know. Was he some kind of religious Cassanova?

And what about all of this "heart" business? A real heart doesn't look like that, but would you really want your lover to give you candy in an anatomically correct heart shaped box? GROSS!

Even more perplexing is this CUPID stuff. Who ever dreamed him up must be really perverted! Think about it: a little 'naked' baby with wings. Who in their right mind would give a bow and arrow to a baby? Supposedly, he shoots an arrow into your heart to make you fall in love. Now anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows that if you are shot in the heart with an arrow, you are going to just plain DIE! That doesn't sound very romantic to me!

I really think the whole day was the brain-child of the Flower, Greeting Card and Candy Industries, but I don't want any part of all of that!

Candy just makes you fat and then no one wants you. You can prick your finger on a thorn from a rose and get an infection, and that's no fun at all. And, it's not very environmentally friendly to send Valentine cards which are made from those poor trees that have to be cut down to make paper. (Not to mention, those nasty paper cuts you can get from opening envelopes!)

A fat guy with infections, paper cuts and an arrow sticking out of his heart isn't exactly my idea of a dream date.

Now, it may sound like I'm not very romantic, but quite the opposite is true. I'm a "hopeless romantic", but I reserve my romance for between the sheets, and I don't mean sheets of paper (like mushy love notes!) Remember, we've got to save those trees!