The 20 worst Valentine's giftsLove means never accidentally running over her cat with a lawnmower. Also, avoid these
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
I am, as always, here to help. This Valentine's Day, be sure to avoid these highly unpleasant gifts. Hey, you want to find love and have sex, right? I mean, someday? OK then.
1) Copy of $3.1 trillion Bush budget.Do not tell that special someone you love them by gutting arts funding in schools, mental health services, Medicare and Medicaid and programs that bring low-income kids to Washington as you create record deficits and humiliate the nation once again, all in an effort to offset a massive increase in Pentagon spending and to fight horrible, unwinnable wars and to appease your dad. Reminder: Dick Cheney reads this instead of Hustler.
2) Hello Kitty contact lenses.Suitable only for compulsive scab-pickers and those who willingly snort anything that comes from the paint-stripper aisle of the hardware store, and/or those who dream of what it will be like to one day live among the feral cats in Golden Gate Park, licking your rancid fur and humping park benches and moaning at the moon like Amy Winehouse at a court hearing. If you do stick these creepy suckers in your eyes, please walk casually into the psych ward of any decent hospital in the nation. They will admit you immediately.
3) 14-karat gold heart pendant with diamonds from Zales at the mall.I must've been about 15 or so, had an older girlfriend on whom I took a giant dangerous risk and spent a whopping $79 on one of these beauties, which was a ton of dough but who cares because dude I loved her and it had diamonds, I mean diamonds, so my love must've been serious, even though I was 15 and knew as much about romance and beautiful jewelry as a rock knows about spun sugar. "American Idol" contestants, small-town junior-high girls with names like Jen-Jen and Courtney who work the drive-through at KFC and the Bush twins simply love jewelry like this, right along with unicorns and pink wine and Colbie Caillat. Also worn by assorted meth addicts and soccer moms who married far too young and who still reminisce about being a second-string cheerleader in 1987. Also, monkeys.
4) Do-It-Yourself fiber-optic rose.When you're not merely a geek, but a geek who never, ever wants to have sex until you're at least 43 and finally move out of your mom's house and get yourself a hooker who, at your nervous behest, agrees to call you 'Sheila' in lusty whispered tones as you lick her red plastic Payless Shoe Source boots for $50 extra, you make yourself one of these beauties. And give it to your mom.
5) Maroon 5 iPod megamix.I occasionally bird-sit my ex-girlfriend's adorably cool African Grey parrot. One day, said bird was sitting atop her cage in my office happily primping her feathers and chirping merrily when I accidentally clicked on a sample tune from "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" on iTMS. The bird's head snapped up as if she'd been shot, she immediately stopped chirping and started shaking her head in quick violent spasms as if she were being swarmed by a million whiny invisible bees. Which, if you think about it, is exactly what was happening.
6) Russell Stover chocolates from Walgreens.What are you, 97 years old? And dead?
7) Real estate.I love you, baby, now let's get naked and talk about 5-1 hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages and CLTV ratios and extensive kitchen remodels and toxic basement mold and refinancing options and HOA dues and the subprime loan scandal and how 98 percent of lofts aren't really lofts and how if we buy this 800 square foot San Francisco condo for $1.3 million we will never eat at a decent restaurant or buy nice things ever again as long as we live. Smooches.
8) Adorable newborn kitten.Oh my God your girlfriend will so totally like, melt! And think it's so adorable and love you deeply and even perhaps orally for maybe like, five whole minutes! At which point all her love and attention and cooing sounds will turn to the cat, and for the next 17 years everything will take on a tangy, sour smell and patches of itchy rash will appear randomly all over your body and you will swear Mr. Snuffigans is sucking out your very soul as you sleep, and your girl will no longer want to do that really dirty thing with margarine and the strap-on and the video camera because the goddamn cat always seems to go into a hacking hair ball fit whenever you do and she gets, like, all worried, even though you are completely convinced the cat is totally faking it in a nefarious ploy to thwart your dreams as long as you live. Get a ficus.
9) Phlegm, in vial.
10) Hammer, used.
11) Emoticon, minced, in fish oil.
12) Malaria, long stemmed, in charming porcelain vase.
13) Bathtub full of broken glass, razor blades, bits of shredded Teddy bear, and 1,001 shiny new pennies.
14) Tub of dark energy.Clever. Unique. But then she opens the lid and in a fraction of a millisecond is rocketed 18 trillion light years out to deep space, accelerating at a faster and faster rate and no one really knows why as she instantly dissolves into a tiny puff of radiant ether. And then you're stuck with the goddamn cat.
15) Fistful of penguin.
16) Nitrogen dioxide/benzene as toxic airborne pollutant, 11.2 parts per million, framed 8x10 with non-glare acrylic and a 1-inch matte.
17) 1991 Geo Metro.You know those nasty intestinal parasites that, when you zoom in with a microscope, suddenly appear to have these gross little hairs all over their red bodies and tiny sucker mouths full of gnarled teeth that latch violently onto any living organ and feed on it until the organ is withered and useless, at which point the parasite flops off and slowly pushes its way though an open sore in your knee and oozes into the daylight and then attempts to rob a Dairy Queen in rural Idaho? The assistant manager drives this car.
18) American Chestnut blight.What, it's not enough that this insidious fungus has already wiped out the gorgeous chestnut tree from American forests over the past 30 years, and science has been entirely unable to stop it? Now you want to wrap it up in a pretty bow and give it to your girlfriend in a nice gift box and tell her it's from your heart? What the hell is wrong with you?
19) Facebook ninja.You are 16 years old. You plan on attending the University of Nowhere Special, majoring in Communications with a minor in Future Receptionist at Third Largest Insurance Company in Fort Wayne. You spend roughly 192 hours a day on Facebook and therefore think that cute bass player you macked on at that party after inhaling 12 Red Bull/Champagne shooters will think you're a super hottie if you send him something using the Facebook gift utility thing. You almost choose the teddy bear with the 'I Heart You' across its evil little chest, but then you got really wild and chose the neat little ninja icon because, well, what teenage bass player doesn't think ninjas are cool? It's, like, a law of the universe or something. Side note: You will be trampled to death by angry gerbils in a bizarre pet store incident in 2015.
20) Mitt Romney.
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