ben.parmeter

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Not to be a big downer or anything, but this holiday feels cheapened by the mass commercialization of candy, greeting cards, etc.   The amount of e-mail spam I’ve received for pajama-grams, flowers-over-the-internet, and penis enlargement have really spiked over the last week.  The marketing geniuses of the world are cramming this holiday down my throat everywhere I turn.

But hey, there is a really good side to this day.  It reminds us to express our love for each other and creates a socially acceptable forum for men (and women) to show their sensitive sides.  Really, we should be letting our significant others know how much we love them all year long.  But this holiday is a welcome platform to affirm just how much we care for one another.

And you know what else, it makes great economic sense.  What better stimulus is there for a country in economic crisis than to celebrate holidays that involve spending lots and lots of money on flowers, candy, expensive restaurants, hotels, gasoline, greeting cards, sexy underwear, jewelry, teddy bears, etc.  It really is like an emergency Christmas!

Wikipedia says “The The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, behind Christmas.” Wow.

So, go out and spend your money with wild abandon and do your part in this crisis.  All of this is a great segue into this clip of John Hodgman from the Daily Show last week.  I found it to be downright hilarious.  Embedded here for your viewing enjoyment.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pm and is filed under holidays, musing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.