Anyone else out there (Men I am talking to you) get the feeling some of these made up holiday's are just traps to fall into? The hints start flowing from the significant others, followed by "oh I don’t need anything for Valentine's day" and the ads on TV make you feel like you need to run out to Vic Secrets and stand around with a red face looking at lacy underwear. Reminds me of the old joke. The sales lady in the bra department is trying to help out the husband. "Is she like a grapefruit, orange or egg" and the husband says "that’'s it, she is like an egg - fried!"

Then there is the one about the farmer in the city for the day shopping for his wife at the lingerie store on Valentine's day: A young businessman came to the register with a lacy black negligee. My aunt noticed that the next customer, an elderly farmer, was holding a long flannel nightgown and kept glancing at the younger man’s sexier choice. When it was his turn, the farmer placed the nightgown on the counter. “Would you have anything in black flannel?” He asked.

Back in college, every Valentine’s Day our campus newspaper has a section for student messages. One time my roommate surprised his girlfriend with roses and dinner at a fancy restaurant. When they returned from their date, she leafed through the paper to see if he had written a note to her. Near the bottom of one page she found: “Tracy — What are you looking here for? Aren’t dinner and flowers enough? Love, Dan.”