Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentine's Day 2012 - be warned, the beginning is a rant ;)

[Let me preface by saying. For those of you who do not personally know me, I am very snarky & sarcastic by nature, but I mean this post in good fun. So if you take offense, please, no nasty messages. ;) ]

Oh it's Valentine's Day again. One day of the year it's "socially acceptable" for women to publicly shame their husbands on FB if, god forbid, they get the wrong chocolates, forget her favorite color of roses, neglect to get the PERFECT card that expresses every loving sentiment that's beating in his heart or, even worse, forget the "holiday" all together. If I sound a bit cynical it's because I am. I like for my husband to show me he loves me all throughout the year, scatter it around a bit, not try to shove ALL of his love & affection for me into the same day of the year that everyone else is doing it, never mind paying 3-4x as much for sweatshop roses than you would on any other day of the freaking year.

But what's the worst in my not-so humble opinion is the picture-sharing on FB.... "Oh look at what my hubby he got for me, thanks babe, I love you!" next to a photo of..... betcha can't guess...... Long-steamed red roses, TWO dozen instead of one, because TWO dozen means he loves her MORE than everyone else's cheap-o husband who only bought one dozen red roses for THEIR wives. Oh won't the OTHER wives be JEALOUS when they see that he bought her TWO dozen roses. *rolls eyes* Gimme a break. *throws up in mouth a little*

You may think I hate love. But I don't. My detest for the cliche-ness of V-Day comes from my LOVE for love, REAL love. Not the kind that can be bought with roses, chocolates, lingerie, jewelry, etc but the kind that lasts. The kind that means something. I don't blame the men. I don't even really blame the industry. I blame the women. That's right, I said it. This Feminist, with a capital F, is gonna blame the women. If women didn't put so much pressure on their husbands to get them the perfect EVERYTHING & say the perfect everything, there wouldn't be an industry for it. No demand = no pressure to create the PERFECT "Hallmark Holiday".
I don't know about everyone else's hubby, but mine has enough pressure from our kids, his job, lack of time, bills, & all other normal day-to-day pressures without the pressure of trying to make the BEYOND perfect 14th of February too.

This is how I prefer for my hubby to show me that he loves me:

Two weekends ago he spent his entire Saturday afternoon & into the evening fixing my car. First he spent the morning calling junk yards to find a working display for my car (the one that shows the time, temperature, radio station, etc) because my old one had so many burned out pixels that I'd never been able to read it & it always annoyed me. The previous week my heating system had stopped working, so he'd spent hours on message boards figuring out the exact problem & making sure he found the correct parts & ordered them online - this is after he'd worked full 12-hour days & helped put the kids to bed too.

So Saturday comes & he replaces my display - he finally found a working one at the junk yard after trying out four others.

Then my 6'4" tall "not-so-mechanical" but "good-at-figuring-things-out-when-they-need-fixing-especially-to-save-$2000+" hubby proceeds to fix my heating system. This requires him to push the drivers seat back all of the way, lay down the seat as far as it'll go, & lay on his back UPSIDE DOWN for HOURS with his head stuck down by the pedals & his legs hanging over the head rest in 35-ish degree weather outside in our driveway as we don't have a garage. And because he'd also gone to the junkyard to find a working display for me, he didn't get started on the heating system until 3:30 pm-ish & this project takes several hours, so he was still outside in the driveway way past dusk, in the cold, in the pitch dark, fixing my heating system by flashlight. After fixing it he took it for a spin to make sure it worked. And every other day for the next week or so he checked back in with me to make sure it was still working. :) It was. :)

So now every time I get in my car, which is at least twice/day, usually much more, I see my working display & feel my heating system working & I am reminded just how much time & energy & discomfort my husband put in & endured & I am reminded just how much he loves me. Flowers shrivel up & die, chocolates just make me fat, lingerie just accentuates the fact that I DON'T have the perfect body & end up making me feel terrible, jewelry - meh - I've never been wild about it, but a working heating system & working display is the gift that keeps on giving. To my wonderful hubby: Thank you sweetie. I love you.

PS - now about my car's broken sunroof & broken ignition switch & low windshield washer fluid... ;-P Hehe!

PPS - I'll settle for just the windshield washer fluid for now. ;)



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