Usually, the days leading up to the Dreaded day are spent wondering, “What is she going to want that I should be telepathically aware of,” or writing mental essays such as “Why Valentine’s day is better than a horrible traffic accident,” or pondering “The joys of being single.”

This was the first year in a long time, if ever, that I looked forward to Valentine’s Day. It’s a holiday for women. Ladies can rally against this however they want, but it is. It’s true. We men dress up, get flowers, and try to impress you. This year, I was actually inspired, proud of my gift (which contained no flowers or flower based additives), and worked pretty hard on (Ha. I said “hard on.” Did I mention that I will forever remain a teenager?) not only the contents, but the delivery.

Knowing that chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which supposedly releases dopamine into the bloodstream, I thought that some form of chocolate would be part of the gift. I figured that I’d whip up a batch of hot chocolate from scratch, and start with that. Although it’s a simple recipe, chopping semisweet chocolate into a powder can be a time consuming pain in the ass. I thought it would be one of those “I care enough about your dopamine levels to waste my time foolishly on you” starters. Maybe it was the opera, but midway through the chopping I had the idea of making chocolate covered strawberries from scratch. I had never done this before, and thought that I could find the directions on the net. How hard could it be?

The first site told me to throw 8 oz. of chocolate morsels in a bowl and microwave them on high for 8 minutes, stirring at the halfway mark. This is where the net breaks down. Not everything out there is reliable. There are idiots who read, but there are also idiots who write. Let me say this from experience: You cannot microwave chocolate to melt it. Looking in on my half melted morsels at the four minute mark, I watched a small geyser of black smoke shooting out of the chocolate like a tiny version of “Old Faitful.” errupting on a tiny, brown lunar lanscape. As I rushed the bowl to the sink, I was well aware that I was not only a member of the second group, but I was officially inducted into the first.

Once bitten, twice shy, I resumed my search for directions, leading me to a site that said to melt 8 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate morsels and some vegetable shortening in a double boiler (dude translation: fill pan with water, jam a pan on top of it containing the morsels, and boil the water), being careful not to get any water in the chocolate lest it seize. As I was going to use my judgement this time, I omitted the funky idea of the vegetable shortening. As a dude, I was unaware that anything but a big block Chevy engine could seize, but I guess the term can apply to anything. Who knew? Having decided on a melting method, there was still the question of how I was going to get strawberries in February. This was beyond me, but I left my smoking mess behind, and headed out to the market.

Every package of strawberries I found was rotted. Grossly rotted. No mater how much chocolate I put on them they would still be rotted rotted. Then I started looking at other fruits like pineapple, raspberries, mangos, or anything that would be a suitable substitute. When I got to the onions, I returned to the original plan of hunting down the strawberries and left the store. I headed to the second market, which didn’t seem to have any strawberries at all. I gave up, and grabbed a bag of pretzels. Nothing like a romantic bag of chocolate covered pretzels to wash down that beer in the doublewide with your old lady, eh, baby? Yeeeeeee haw! I threw them back and made one last sweep of the fruit section before trying to find another store.

Right in front of my face were package after package of big, fat summer strawberries. Kick ass strawberries right in front of, and bigger than, my big guinea nose. I bought them and some waxed paper, and took them home. The double boiler thing went well, and once the chocolate is melted, you really just twirl the strawberries in the pan until they’re half covered in chocolate, set them on waxed paper, and stick them in the fridge to cool.

So, I have the hot chocolate and the chocolate covered strawberries to cover the “I’m creative” and the “raise your dopamine” part of the gift. To cover the “I listen to you” part, I bought her expensive sheets, which she mentioned that she liked a few times. To cover the “I’m one sneaky bastard” part of the gift, I bought red satin sheets, washed them, folded them, and stuck them in a plastic supermarket bag. I’m not writing about the “I’m am one perverted mother f’r” part of the gift, but trust me when I say that it was included.

Anyway, I actually laid awake the night before planning delivery. I was actually having fun on this holiday for women, because for once, I had come across a woman who deserved, not demanded, this much effort. It was executed thusly: When I went to her house, I brushed by the unsuspecting young thing at the door with a bagful of crap, immediately dropping the hot chocolate mix and strawberries on her as a distraction. I then said that I was sorry, but I didn’t have time after going to the gym to wrap her presents, so I asked if I could wrap them in her room. I then asked her to crank the music so she wouldn’t have a clue as to what I was wrapping. I then quietly stripped her bed, and put on the red satin sheets, remaking it exactly as I found it, with the exception of the new sheets being in place, and her regular ones hidden under her bed. While executing all of this, I made sure to crinkle a bag, which I thought would further mask some of the noise.

Ok, she didn’t suspect the bed, but she did ask me what the hell I had been doing with the bag.

Let me say 3 things: There is nothing like the moment when someone discovers that you have pulled one over on them, there is nothing like being appreciated, and there is nothing like listening to a grown woman giggle like a teenage girl.

As a result, today, the day after, I watched war movies, ate cookies for lunch, scratched myself, and have yet to shower. Ah, balance. Ain’t life grand?

Posted in #1GF!, Happy