Pink roses, red boxes of chocolate, love letters, heart-shaped balloons, Vagina Monologues - Valentine's Day alone is reason enough why America is not yet ready for a female President. This holiday, which, despite popular belief, was actually started in the early 17th century by the horny wives of Puritans who wanted extra attention from their sex-fearing husbands, has been a thorn in the side of men ever since. Today, this unfortunate instance of the deceitful manipulation of powerless males at the hands of their far more attractive counterparts has resulted in a day in which over one billion Valentine cards are sent each year, and when even cold-hearted misanthropes like me are often guilted into dishing out a few tokens of love and affection.
The situation has gotten so out of hand lately that I actually wanted to send everyone in the world one of my personalized Harry Potter valentines, many of which offer witty and heartfelt messages like "Have a spellbinding Valentine's Day" and "We have a magical friendship." Unfortunately, those are only for girls that I like as friends and/or have secret crushes on, so instead I'm using this space to offer my collective Valentine to the people whom I felt would be looking into their homemade Valentine's boxes after recess this afternoon and would not see the cornucopia of candy message hearts and X-Men cards that probably stuffed many of your own boxes. So without further ado, I would like to wish a joyful and loving Valentine's Day to the following neglected people, places and things.
Spongebob Squarepants: as if living in a pineapple under the sea was not difficult enough, everyone's favorite cartoon is now receiving the Clay Aiken treatment from a few Southern religious leaders. Yes, aside from being "absorbent," "yellow" and "porous," Mr. Squarepants can also add "flaming homosexual" to his lengthy resume of character adjectives. Now, since I do consider myself a very accepting and tolerant person, I certainly will not judge an innocent sponge simply because he decides to fill his pores with something other than seawater. So have a happy Valentine's Day, Spongebob, because you are and always will be fine by me.
The Male Package: after suffering vituperative bashings in The Observer from a few pretend Keenan Revue haters last week, this oft-forgotten member of the student body (pun so obviously intended) now also has to compete fiercely with its female rival thanks to an entire series of monologues devoted exclusively to it. Couple that with the expectations of spiritual abstinence associated with the Lenten season, and these little guys are really getting the shaft (oh, the puns just keep coming). Be sure to wish them a happy Valentine's Day.
Fat Guy Who Lip-Synchs to the Romanian Techno Song at his Computer: all of America has had the chance to laugh hysterically at the lip-synching of this unbelievably pathetic human being, so I'm pretty sure this guy could use all of the Valentine's love he can possibly get.
Ashlee Simpson: all of America has had the chance to laugh hysterically at the lip-synching of this unbelievably pathetic human being, so I'm pretty sure this girl could use all of the Valentine's love she can possibly get.
Geraldine Ferraro: now, you might be wondering why there would be any reason in the world to wish a happy Valentine's Day to the unsuccessful female running mate of Walter Mondale in 1984. Well, the vote totals from the recent student body elections on campus have shown, quite resoundingly in fact, that including a hot female vice presidential candidate on your ticket is a surefire way to boost your vote total. (Just ask Dave Baron and James Leito.) Mondale, however, suffered one of the worst defeats in U.S. history, thereby proving my theory that Ferraro is an ugly, ugly human being. Happy Valentine's Day, Ger!
Virginian Butt Cleavage: in case any residents of the Old Dominion State haven't heard, the state House of Delegates recently passed legislation that levies a $50 fine on people wearing pants that sag so low that their underwear is revealed "in a lewd or indecent manner." Strangely enough, though, the only people benefiting from this absolutely absurd law are the police officers who get to walk around checking out every butt in Virginia in the hopes of finding a rogue thong strap and getting to grab it as evidence. (Yet another one of those strangely coincidental ironies to social conservatism that convinces me that "born-again Christian" is just a code word for "convicted sex offender.") So happy Valentine's Day, Virginian butt cleavage - your presence will be greatly missed.
As you can see, no matter how miserable and depressing your day of love might be, you can at least find solace in the fact that there is always someone else out there with an even emptier box of Valentines.
Actually, I heard he got a coaching job at Washington.
Joey Falco is a sophomore American Studies major. His column appears every other Monday. He can be reached at jfalco@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
