The 14th is approaching
February 12th, 2006 | by mbhunter |February 14th is coming up fast. Since I’m male, the holiday is known as: Procrastination Day.
Retailers are well aware of this. They’ve been taunting us with displays of heart-shaped boxes of everything since December 26th. And during the fifty-one days in between Christmas and Procrastination Day, we purchase: nothing.
Then, in an enormous fit of opportunism, retailers jack up the price on anything remotely related to Procrastination Day. A $5 bouquet of flowers suddenly becomes $10 on February 14th. They might as well write “HA HA LOSER” under the price.
So guys, here are a few ideas for those who don’t want to get skinned by retailers. It’s up to you to decide if you’re going to get skinned by your mate for trying them!
- If flowers are a must then try to negotiate giving them the day before or the day after — or say that you’ll surprise her sometime later. This works fine for me since my wife thinks that prices on the 14th are ridiculous too.
- Look for something else that is luvvy-duvvy but not explicitly “Valentine’s Day” stuff. It probably won’t be marked up. I got my wife a box of Cheerios with a heart-shaped bowl on the front. (I’m not making this up!)
- Plan for something a little different that doesn’t involve lots of expensive purchases. One of Jeffrey Strain’s sites, Inexpensive Dating, has over two dozen ideas. This emphasizes the time spent together rather than the money spent.
