By John Kuhn
Special to the Index
Like every other man in America, I can hardly contain my excitement about the fact that Valentine’s Day is looming like a giant pink Apocalypse.

All holidays are pregnant with opportunities for well-meaning men to get into trouble with the women they love, but none so much as Valentine’s Day. It’s a veritable minefield for the male species, a day of reckoning wrapped in a Pepto-Bismol-colored bow.

It’s noteworthy that this is the only holiday popularly associated with people being shot. Cupid looks nice with his chubby face and fluffy white wings, but the plain fact is that he’s a sniper. Have you ever seen an arrow pierce the flesh of a large mammal? It is not, in my opinion, a romantic picture. Why is it, I wonder, that we associate love with being impaled unawares by a whistling, sharpened shaft?

As dangerous as a fat floating baby with a bow-and-arrow may be, there are other, more dangerous aspects to this holiday. I should note here, in the interest of full disclosure, that men do not actually know when Valentine’s Day is (or any other holiday, for that matter). We are saved, year after year, by the fact that television networks air holiday-related commercials during sporting events. During a break in the NFL playoffs, the same stupid guy who just bought his wife a Lexus for Christmas can now be seen surprising her with a $999 diamond necklace. (All men hate this guy.)

The first time he sees this commercial, the typical man will think, “Oh shoot. Some holiday is coming up. Is it my anniversary?” Luckily for him, the same commercial will run 25 more times before the fourth quarter is over, and he’ll eventually deduce that it’s a Valentine’s Day commercial. (He’ll be helped in arriving at this conclusion by the fact that the commercial begins with the words, “Surprise her this Valentine’s Day with something as priceless as she is.”)

This commercial and others like it are actually a public service designed by the business world to keep men out of the doghouse. In return, we have to buy their junk.

It’s in the buying of the junk where Valentine’s Day becomes most dangerous for men. Each year, when it finally dawns on a man that it’s almost Valentine’s Day (a revelation invariably accompanied by the panicked thought, “Did I miss it?”), he is faced with four choices: does he buy her flowers, jewelry, chocolates, or all of the above? The last option is only for use in an emergency, like the flotation device in an airplane. And, like that flotation device, if things are bad enough to need it, it probably won’t do you any good.

If men would simply buy chocolates, or jewelry, or flowers, things would be OK. But because Providence has a great sense of humor, men all over the world can’t seem to remember something like, “I bought her flowers last year and she liked them.” Instead, year after year, we are tempted to use a dangerous thing called logic.

It’s very important for men to remember that logic has ABSOLUTELY NO PLACE in Valentine’s Day.

When a man goes to his local florist (or Walmart) and sees the price of a dozen roses, his first thought will always be, “That’s a lot of money to spend on something that will be dead in a week.” Do you see the error in that thought process? Yes, the problem is the logic. Successful men have learned to paralyze the part of their brain that generates logical thought from late January through early March. When they look at a $69 bouquet of roses, these men think, “They remind me of her beauty.” (You can recognize these men by their blank stares and the open wallet they hold out in front of them.) It never dawns on these men that a shrub would come back year after year or that a toaster oven would get near-daily use and would make perfect grilled cheese sandwiches.

Likewise, logic is the Valentine’s Day enemy of the man who goes into the jewelry store (or Walmart) and, while looking at diamond bracelets, begins to think about how much more his wife would enjoy a new Blu-Ray disc player. I mean, she could watch movies like “Braveheart,” “300,” “Star Wars” or anything starring Leslie Nielsen in amazing high-definition and enjoy all sorts of extra features that wouldn’t fit on a standard DVD.

See the problem? When your brain starts talking like that in early February, you have to stop it. The correct thought process goes like this: “Those diamonds will really bring out the sparkle in her eyes.” Now you’re on your way to a successful holiday.

Similarly, if a man goes into a chocolate shop (or Walmart) and browses the sweets, he’ll be tempted to remember all the times he’s heard his wife complain about her weight and swear that she was on the verge of taking drastic measures, like exercising. When that occurs to him, it will be immediately followed by the reasonable conclusion that buying chocolates would be a counterproductive and therefore ill-conceived gift.

Wrong.

What the experienced husband will have trained his brain to think is this: “These chocolates are sweet like her.”

Now, since 95 percent of men under 40 will buy Valentine’s Day presents on smart phones this year (right after checking college basketball scores) it’s important to mention the case of the Staten Island teenager who fell into an open manhole in July because she was texting while walking. Texting-while-walking (TWW) is the latest epidemic threat to our safety and will eventually result in breathless news stories like the ones about swine flu, bird flu, mad cow disease and SUVs that spontaneously flip over. Then we’ll get some TWW legislation, which will fix everything. Until then, it’s vital that men find a safe place to sit before shopping for Valentine’s Day presents … like on the couch in front of a playoff game, for example.



John Kuhn is the principal of Mineral Wells High School and the author of the book “Texas Eccentrics.”