According to Hofmann: Valentine’s dough
My wife, Amber, has a subtle way of dropping hints for me to do things: She tells them to our dog, Oreo.
“Oreo, I wish my husband will do something nice and extra special for me on Valentine’s Day, which falls on Tuesday next week.”
“Amber,” I say, “I’m sitting right next to you.”
“Yeah, Mark, but for some reason you never listen to me unless I’m talking to Oreo … Mark? Mark?”
Believe me, I want to give Amber the greatest Valentine’s Day ever with candy, flowers, champagne, a romantic dinner, bath oils, tickets to the circus, the 4K Ultra HD versions of “The Notebook” and “Sleepless in Seattle,” jewelry and adorable toy animals stuffed with jewelry, flowers, candy, cash, champagne and “Sleepless in Seattle.”
The problem is that stuff gets pretty pricey, and it’s not just me saying that.
According to the National Retail Federation, Valentine’s Day in 2023 will have people spending an average of $192.80 – an even $193 if they decide to throw in a few of those candy hearts with messages on them.
That figure is up 10% from last year. Nothing like inflation to destroy the romance in a marriage and not my lack of listening skills, so says my wife to Oreo.
Now, I know what you’re saying because you wrote your comments on those little candy hearts that it’s OK to splurge on your loved ones for Valentine’s Day.
I agree, but you also have to consider that many families are still in financial recovery from splurging on Thanksgiving because the “family” needs to “eat,” splurging for Christmas because the “family needs presents,” splurging on New Year’s because the “family needs booze and pork,” and most recently splurging on Groundhog’s Day because the “family needs ammunition to shoot at groundhogs upon hearing there’s going to be six more weeks of winter.”
I have to admit, things were looking dark this Valentine’s Day, but cometh the hour, cometh the woman as my step-sister-in-law (my family tree is more like a wild vine) posted on social media that she would be available for rent on Valentine’s Day for $100 per hour to watch Netflix, eat pizza, take cute couple’s photos and give a good-night peck on the cheek.
Of course, the post was a joke, but I think everything online is real, so I decided that would be the perfect way for me to raise money to afford to give Amber a Valentine’s Day with all the fixin’s.
For the plan to work, I decided to lowball my competition by offering my services for $16 per hour and a bottle of bourbon. For that, whoever is renting me can engage in such activities like watching “Terminator 2,” go cow tipping, do Christopher Walken impressions and play “What’s that Smell?”
With that in place, along with a photo of me sitting at a kitchen table with a slice of pizza hanging out of my mouth like it’s a triangular tongue, the only thing left is to tell Amber because, well, if one decided to rent one’s self out on the most romantic day of the year to someone who’s not one’s own one, then one’s own may have one or two things to say to one.
I know that’s a lot of math, but it’s a small sacrifice when love is concerned.
The best way I can figure to ease such a blow would be to compare it to those bachelor auctions I’ve seen on sitcoms over the years where there’s no hanky-panky happening and the bachelor’s true-love interest always manages to outbid the 85-year-old widow with a predatory lust in her eyes.
Then again, if that’s the case in this case, then it would be counterproductive for Amber to rent me, as no money would be gained to give her a grand Valentine’s Day experience.
The other option would be not telling her at all, but that would be wrong, and she’ll likely find out after I come home smelling like bourbon and riddled with signs of a cow-tipping evening gone horribly wrong.
Faced with such a situation, I find the best thing to do is find a middle ground between those two extremes and take a strategy from Amber’s playbook.
“Oreo, I have a kooky idea to raise money to do something extra special for my wife on Valentine’s Day…”
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His books, “Good Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One…and Dying, Too” and “Stupid Brain,” are available on Amazon.com.