Maybe some Eric Segal-type could answer these questions better than I. Anybody who can generate LOVE between a preppie hockey jock and a poor, nearsighted music major of Italian extraction, must know more about LOVE than I do--or like Hallmark, how to get more bucks for the bang.
Having no expert to call on (they must all be out LOVING today) I'll just hazard my own guess: Hallmark's LOVE was conceived on a Manhattan subway car by a fat, bald, 35-year-old greeting card writer with thick glasses, a perspiring brow, a poster of Cheryl Tiegs on his closet door and a conscience burdened by the same aboriginal sins Alexander Portnoy complained about. In other words, the Grinch may have stolen Christmas, but somebody is trying to pervert Valentine's Day.
It's not that I have anything personal against sado-masochism, but how is that going to solve my problem? When I say problem, I mean I pulled a real boner. Believe it or not, I went to the Coop and bought a whole mess of cards. I bought them for relatives, lovers, friends, foes and fiends alike, then I filled them all out and the envelopes too (making up zip codes randomly as usual). Then the phone rang. When I came back I sealed the envelopes and, ignoring my roommate's urgent pleas to wait, I dashed out to mail my Valentines. You know what he wanted to tell me? While I was on the phone he took the cards out of the envelopes to read them--then he replaced them randomly into the envelopes. Now I don't know which cards went to whom!
So I may have sent my sister that card about bringing along a buddy. She asked me to invite a lacrosse player to the house sometime--but now she'll think I invited the whole team.
And my poor mother. If I've confused her with a couple of old high school friends she will soon be reading:
To he who looks like Tarzan...And speaks like Jane.
Valentine, you remind me of sweet, sugary candy...
Cause you make my Peanut Brittle.
And what if my girlfriend receives:
Valentine, You're my melancholy baby...With a head like a melon and a face like a collie!
And to my Chem 20 sectionwoman:
I think you're a brute, an animal and a sex fiend...
And I want you to know I appreciate it.
Yet even if Hallmarkian LOVE on Valentine's Day means losing all my friends and going to prison for sending obscene materials through the mails, at least my father will get the appropriate card. I know it is not a mistake because I just bought it at Cahaly's. It reads:
A Valentine Poem for my Father:
I love you just the way you are;
Don't change a single hair;
So bless your loving heart;
And your tattered underwear.