Anyone getting stabby tonight? (The V-Day thread)

I thought it was bookstores?

 

At last! A man who can satisfy two women at the same time!

 

Photo fail.

 

Valentine's Day at my house ...

Woke up at 9:30 to drive the wife to work, still half asleep while doing 50 down a six-lane highway. I returned home to return to my bed, which was now occupied by two dogs. They would not budge.

A few hours later, I showered and for the first time in three years donned the old uniform -- jeans, a wrestling shirt, and a slightly frayed button-down. Once more, I was a sports writer, and it is time again for girls state basketball. I'm just a freelancer, a stringer, someone who shows up to write a story about a team I've never watched from some far-flung part of this desolate state. But, man cannot live on unemployment alone.

Not having a scorebook, I browsed the app store for scorekeeping apps for the iPad. Then I think, I'm only going to make $35 today and there are official scorers at state. Fuck it.

Fearing that my penmanship will be woefully inadequate, I dug out my digital recorder. The batteries are dead. The recorder was last used a year ago. I pondered spending $2 on no-name gas station batteries. I pondered making the extra effort to write legibly during a post-game interview. I chose the batteries.

While at the game, I took notes on the iPad and thought, this bastard would have been useful five years ago when I did this every night. Fuck it. The game was a blowout by the second quarter, and I quit taking notes.

There is no wi-fi at the school in 2013, so I drove the 10 miles home to write and email my story. The cable internet service was out. After a 90 minute call, service was restored. At 6:30, I filed a story for a 1 p.m. game. I left the house to pick up my wife from work.

Having decided neither of us wanted to cook and excited that I made $35 today, we drove to Chick-fil-A for dinner. At the drive-thru window the server tells us the lemonade is pink for Valentine's Day.

My wife: "It's Valentine's Day?"

Me: "They put red food dye in our lemonade. Hope it doesn't taste like shit."

My wife sampled the lemonade, and while the dye has not affected the flavor she choked on a lemon seed. Chick-fil-A should strain the lemonade better.

We drove home, ate our processed chicken, and watched American Idol. My wife fell asleep on the couch, and she is never to be disturbed. I am writing this on my iPad while lying in bed. The dog has just farted.

 

Shrugs. I can see it. Just gives credit to where the line is from, Steve Martin in Roxanne.

 

The person who posts hotlinked photos can see it. The rest of us get a message saying you're stealing it from someone's website.

 

This reads like Cormac McCarthy's version of Valentine's Day.

A tattered card sits on a shelf.
The silk-skinned cherub is covered in last year's grime, no longer rosy. Pale and gray.
A dog farts. The scent is overpowering.
The wife hurls.
I tap the glowing screen in front of me. Numbers blink. My eyes are pinned open. Dry. Motionless. Searing from the stench of dog fart.
Valentine's Day. Romantic. Valentine's Day. Death.

 

Jesus, man, I was kidding. Do you know the kind of savages that post here?

 

7

 

Dick Whitman would like to know who helps you pick out your clothes.

Seriously - he couldn't pick out clothes to save his life.

 

Rick Stain would.