Please don't be my Valentine

It's officially here. The worst day of the year: Valentine's Day or what I have dubbed "Fraud Day." All day long I walk around with that nauseous feeling, wanting to strangle everyone.

It can't be said enough that Valentine's Day is the most ridiculous holiday of all time. I certainly don't need a day to tell my wife that I love her. As a matter of fact, I just told her that very thing last month and I didn't need a special day for it either.

There are so many reasons I hate "Fraud Day" I can't even count them all. But first and foremost is the buying of gifts for your significant other.

It all starts when you are in elementary school and teachers make you give valentines to the entire class. You even have to get valentines for the kids who give you wedgies during recess. And for what? So the girl that you don't want anything to do with starts to think you want to be her "boyfriend?" UGGHHH!

Then you grow up and the gifts go from a little valentine to the stupid little heart-shaped candies with idiotic messages to more expensive things like flowers and jewelry. This year alone the average man will spend $120 on gifts for their significant other.

Women, I am going to let you in on a little secret: ALL men are stupid when it comes to buying presents. It isn't that we don't care, it is just that we aren't sure what to buy because every gift we get has consequences.

Let me explain. Say a man buys his wife chocolate for "Fraud Day." All is well and good as she stuffs her face with the tantalizing candies. That is until several days later when she realizes she just ate a pound of chocolate and starts feeling fat. Then you get the question, "Do I look fat in these jeans?" and well, you know how that turns out.

If you buy your significant other a stuffed animal she will "ooh and ahh" about how cute it is, then proceed to put it up on the shelf to collect dust, never to move again until she leaves you for "not caring" and "never buying her anything."

Before I go any further, let me just say that if you need a gift for your significant other this year, please purchase flowers from a local florist. And don't think I'm suggesting this because of the nasty letters I got from irate florists after last year's Valentine's Day column. No, no, no. I just think nothing says "I love you" like a bunch of colorful weeds that will be dead within a week.

But even with flowers you can run into problems. Men, do you know that different flowers mean different things? Yeah, the common red rose means passionate love and the white tulip means forgiveness (this is one men must remember) and so on. And don't think your significant other doesn't know what these flowers mean so you have to make sure you get the right ones. Then if you don't have them delivered to her place of work you get in trouble too, because they have to be able to show off that their significant other cares. So, you see, every gift has consequences.

That is why this year I am going to ignore the entire holiday and pretend it doesn't exist. No buying dumb flowers or expensive jewelry. Nope! I'm going to roll the dice and hope my wife realizes how perfect I am the rest of the year. On second thought, does anybody have the number for a good florist?