love costs $8.99

If one Valentine’s Day card doesn’t say it all—not the mushy one or the funny one or the singing one or the sexy one—you could get in serious trouble. 

Me: This is the card you got me? 

Him: I thought it was funny. 

Me: How about the one that says in all the world, you’re the only one made just for me? 

Him: That one costs more. 

Me: Good choice. 

Even if you do get it right, when you go to your Hallmark store, you have the sense of being taken for a ride and it’s not to the chapel of love. 

For example, “I love the way we text.” If you love it so much, why not text? Why pay $8.99 for a card as hi-tech as washing clothes on a rough stone or cooking the raw flesh of a buffalo over an open flame? 

And we feel guilty, right, about not coming up with our own sentiments but being a parasite to others so much better at the most important key to a good relationship, communication. 

Well, take a page from Romeo and Juliet at my house. It doesn’t have to end so badly. 

Me: Are you ready for our annual Valentine’s Day excursion? 

Him: I suddenly feel very tired. 

Me: Let’s get it over with. 

Years ago, after buying lame cards that said something but not everything, or others that said something we could have said ourselves, and still more that said something then ended up in a keepsake box never to be reopened, Ray and I decided to go to Hallmark together and cheat. 

Meaning, we stand before rows of cards dripping in roses, cute animals, giant hearts, glitter, sequins, and the occasional rude body gesture designed to indicate the great comfort of a longtime love, and we explore. Then I pick a card I coulda, woulda, shoulda bought for one penny short of six or eight or ten dollars, and I hand it over. He gets his smirk or blush or giggle, and it goes back on the shelf. Then it’s his turn.  

This goes on until one of us gets sick of fawning and swooning, and we call it a holiday. 

In between, we laugh like idiots, wondering if the store clerks have caught on. We’re manhandling the merchandise with no intention of buying, our sticky hands—we always start with some low-brow lunch—perhaps providing the evidence of our subterfuge. 

Yet it’s romantic in that we’re-in-this-dumb-thing-together kind of way. Out loud he reads, “You are hot pink in a sea of beige,” and bats his eyes like hummingbird wings. I tingle. 

“What a man you are,” I say next, adoringly, or at least someone better than me said that. 

He counters, “I love the sh*t outta you.” Yes, a real card. 

And I retort, “Are you a campfire? ‘Cause you are hot and I want s’more.” 

He groans and adds, “Our love is bigger and stronger than most couples and I’m proud of that.”  

Yeah, right. 

I punt with, “I love everything about you. Except those things we’ve already discussed.” 

Now we’re getting closer to home. 

Dusted in sticky red shimmer, I know we’re near the end when Ray gets philosophical and says something like, “If you have to get a serious card, you should just get a divorce. A funny card is the only thing that makes sense in a longtime marriage.” 

Then we fall on the floor clutching our bellies—They’re on to us now—and tumble out of the store drunk with the final convulsions of the yearly Valentine’s Day jaunt.   

We take the money we didn’t spend and buy ourselves a gift we don’t need—wine glasses, coffee mugs, a candle for the bedroom—something maybe we’ll use. Maybe. 

In the end we didn’t save a dime, but we imagine we saved a tree.  

And this we call love, too.

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