Men! The Time of the Required Offering Is Approaching!

If you're a straight man in North America, you already know the terrors of Valentine's Day. It's a deadly holiday, particularly in the earlier stages of a relationship, since there's no way you can possibly be as romantic as your inamorata wishes you would be. (Women will often tell you that they don't expect anything special, and it's even true now and again. But expecting and wanting are two very different things.)

Luckily, I have passed into the ranks of the Old Married Dudes, and can survey your travails from the comfort of my exalted (and tired) position. The most important thing, when it comes to Valentine's Day, is surprise. (It has to be a good surprise, though; very few women respond well to having a bag shoved over their heads and being fake-kidnapped to an outer-borough restaurant. Though the few that do appreciate that are firecrackers. But I digress.)

Some women are easy to surprise. I was lucky enough to marry one of them, and I've already put into place a time-honored plan to surprise her in a way I've done many times before. (Details redacted, just in case she reads this blog for the first time ever.) If you're involved with a woman with a better memory, this may be more difficult.

But you have just over a week to plan, which gives you time to make reservations -- at a restaurant, you and I and every other man in the world knows that you already have the other kind, and always will have -- if necessary and to order whatever physical objects (some women like flowers, some clothing, some a fine set of high-torque wrenches; I don't judge) will be most likely to push her Romance-O-Meter from "OK" up to "WOW."

I can't help with the former, but, for the latter, there is a large online retailer that sells many of those items:

(If you're boycotting that particular large online retailer -- and why shouldn't you? strong moral stances are good for the digestion and blood pressure -- I have to suggest actually heading out into the world to exchange money, and quite possible fatal disease bacilli, with other human beings. That choice, as always, is yours.
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Listening to: The Idle Hands - The 80's Killed Your Boyfriend
via FoxyTunes