Honey, you've taught me the meaning of love...Love means never having to say you're horny.

You're a real sweater girl...And I'd like to pull the wool over your eyes.

Cruel? Crude? Even a wee bit sexist? You bet pal, but it's not my fault--I'm just your typical cosmopolitan shopper, aged 20-to-35, M.C. Escher on my closet door and cross-country skis within. I breakfast at the Greenhouse Coffee House, brunch at 33-D, and eat out whenever I can. I'm as relevant as Passim's and as exotic as the Coffeee Connection.

You are too beautiful for one man alone...So I brought along a buddy.

I'm looking for a meaningful relationship...LOTS OF SEX!

I'm into...D-d-dominance.

Hey, don't get uptight, today is a holiday and I'm just getting into the spirit. Valentine's Day is no Holy Day, so I can't go to church; it is not a political holiday so there is no parade downtown; nothing is for free like on Halloween, not even love, so I'm just gonna stroll on over to the Coop or Store 24 and catch some more jollies looking at Valentine's Day cards. Oh wow, how cruel--I know just the guy to send this one to! Oh my God, is that awful, so suggestive--she'd love it! But what about grandma?

To every holiday belongs a certain genre of literature, designed to express a certain sentiment to those we love, or to those institutions we are afraid to lay as under.

Christmas belongs to Dicken's Christmas Carol and a mantle plastered with cards blessing the family and signed sincerely by an embossing machine. The Fourth of July belongs to the Star Spangled Banner and corny political speeches delivered at the courthouse corn and weenie roast. Even Commencement belongs to something--we really don't know who or what, but its trademarks are a sheepskin inscribed with extinct languages, special issues of The Crimson, and maybe even Woody Allen to inspire our voyage to "The Real World."

Valentine's Day, however, belongs to the greeting card companies.

Remember the "good ole days," when Valentine's Day meant a half-dozen roses, bittersweet chocolates, a singing telegram and a mushy card bordered by heart-shaped doilies? Goodbye to all that.

As anyone who has read his way along our nation's highways knows, Hallmark Invented Love. Now I don't doubt that a big greeting card corporation invented love--hell, it's general knowledge that Sears Roebuck invented Christmas and that A&P invented the Puritan Work Ethic we are all so thankful for. Despite these precedents, however, I suspect Hallmark has a prurient interest in this thing it calls LOVE:

Valentine, You're one in a million...So you'll have to wait in line.

Valentine, too much sex can make you blind...Let's just fool around 'til we need glasses.

What is LOVE anyway? Can love really be defined in terms of never having to say you're horny? If I expressed these sentiments to my mother, could she truly love me anymore?