Setting the mood

As if you needed more reasons to hate this bull$hit holiday, MP Dunleavey has come through for us:

The problem is that Valentine's Day... has grown from being a celebration that once aspired to some meaning, to being a trashy, materialistic extravaganza.

Think about how much pressure there is to participate:

Every schoolchild, practically, is expected to make or send cards to their classmates or bring treats to class.

Some single women feel so left out on Valentine's Day that they've been known to send flowers to themselves, so they won't look like losers.

And don't assume couples are happier: For many, Valentine's Day is a yearly excuse to have a nasty fight, with partners feeling unloved . . . because they didn't get a stuffed bear or some candy. What?

What makes this ritual even more puzzling is that Valentine's Day doesn't even have a good story (see: Christmas, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July) or spooky ghosts and pumpkins. In fact, we don't even know the story.

Note this baffling summary on The History Channel's Web site: "But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine's Day -- and its patron saint -- is shrouded in mystery."

Basically, throughout the millennia, February was always a slow shopping month. Then, because a couple of early Christian martyrs (both named Valentine?) might have died for love, a holiday emerged.

I'm not making this up. I found the following stories on Wikipedia and in a U.S. Census Bureau release:

* A priest secretly married lovers in defiance of a Roman emperor's decree and supposedly was executed for it.

* Another man, as legend has it, was rejected by his mistress, and -- you'll like this -- he carved out his own heart and gave it to her. Yech.

Last year, Valentine's Day-observing Americans spent an average of $123 on gifts, according to the National Retail Federation... If my husband spent $100 on gifts instead of putting it into our emergency fund -- a far greater gesture of love -- I would make him eat the oil bill for breakfast.

[A]s a country deep in debt, we don't need to spend billions of dollars on tokens of affection.