I hope everyone had a nice Valentine’s Day and received many heartfelt good wishes, tokens of love, and similar garbage. Continuing my tradition of being a day late and a dollar short, I’d like to share some words about that special day.
Some time back, I wondered why a heart became a symbol of the day. I assumed it was because our hearts are associated with feelings and emotions, especially love. “Be still my beating heart” and all that. But logically, we all know that’s not true. The heart is just a muscle that pumps our blood. Our brain is what registers our thoughts and feelings. So why didn’t a brain become associated with Valentine’s Day? Candy-makers could offer rosy pink brain-shaped boxes loaded with medulla- and cerebellum-shaped chocolates filled with strawberry cream or raspberry jelly. The boxes could be tied closed with a fancy string resembling a spinal cord. Brains would be an easier target for those annoying naked flying Cupids to hit with their arrows, or today, AK-47s.
If just a regular organ such as the heart is still the preference, couldn’t we at least alternate organs for a while? How about bladders for a couple of years? Then livers, kidneys, spleens, carburetors, lungs, pliers, hose clamps, prostates, track shoes, etc., or most any other internal organ inside the actual human body.
This whole Valentine thing started because of the Romans who, for three days from February 13 through February 15, celebrated the festival of Lupercalia in a manner similar to our current Valentine custom, during which men sacrificed a goat and a dog and beat the naked woman of their choice with the bloody hides. Any of you ladies out there of the female persuasion who’ve been beaten with a Chihuahua hide while naked, you know how painful that can be. Some where in the midst of all the fun, Claudius II February 14 executed two men named Valentine. Sometime later, Pope Gelatinous I, or something like that, decided to name February 14 St. Valentine’s Day in honor of the martyred men and to phase out the pagan Lupercalia festival. Rome was filling up with dead goats and dogs.
So where did the naked, flying, chubby Cupid cherub emanate? The Romans reinterpreted Greek myths where Cupid was the god of desire and Romans were fixated on naked individuals. Venus was supposedly Cupid’s mother, but no father was in the picture. Venus was somewhat of a sleaze and had many children by other gods, but tried to pin Cupid on Mars. DNA tests were inconclusive, which meant no child support for Venus.Cupid had to earn money as a naked, flying, love-inducing hit cherub, with the bow and arrow as his weapon of choice. He carried a torch for back up. In case the arrows didn’t inject enough desire into his victims, he would set their hearts on fire with the torch and an unknown accelerant. If Fannie May or Hallmark would take my earlier suggestions, Cupid would be depicted puncturing and torching other internal organs every couple of years.
Somewhere down the line, Cupid accidentally shot himself with his own weapon. This is hard to believe. Have any of you tried to shoot yourselves in the heart with a bow and arrow? Anyway, this was supposed to cause him to experience the ordeal of love while spending half a day in the emergency room of the Coliseum.
I have forgotten my past Valentine’s Days except for one when I was young and even more foolish than I am today. I bought four big Fannie May heart boxes of chocolates for $15 each and delivered them to the four young ladies I was dating. Because of stupid Cupid and his weaponry, I nearly bled to death and spontaneously combusted. At any rate, soon the four objects of my affection each discovered she wasn’t my one and only, and dumped me like a coughed up hairball. I’d wasted $60 on candy and was now alone. I should have eaten the chocolates myself and taken a contract out on Cupid.