BY COLLEEN SHANAHAN AND LINDSAY RENNER
Lions’ Pride Online Editor and Entertainment Editor

Photograph courtesy of pupilasdilatadas.com

Valentine’s Day is supposed to be the day where people across the world show affection towards their special somebodies. However, the day has turned into a dream come true to chocolate and flower companies across the globe. Why do I need to mark off a day on the calendar to show my affection for someone, especially at the outrageous prices places charge for Valentine’s Day gifts? Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a ploy for companies to prey on their consumers. These companies see things as a supply and demand, and for what they are supplying, they sure are demanding a lot of money.

Let’s take a look at 1800flowers.com. On top of their high prices on flowers, they charge a $4.99 fee for flowers to be delivered on February 13 because service doesn’t occur on Sundays. If someone ordered flowers to be delivered on February 12, there is no shipping or fee. You can kiss that $4.99 plus shipping and tax good-bye.

Chocolates are another area that gets inflated during this “holiday.” Just because a box has a puppy on it holding out a heart that says “I ruff you” doesn’t constitute the inflation people put on the price. For example, this cartoon character box of chocolates might cost around $1-$2 dollars for about four to five pieces of chocolate. Someone could go out and buy a bag of the same candy for the same price or a little more and get a lot more candy. I know I’d rather have more chocolate than a cartoon dog on a small box that I’ll eventually throw out anyway.

What I’m trying to say is affection of any kind should be demonstrated every day; it shouldn’t be concentrated into one day with exorbitant prices attached to it. I know my boyfriend and I wait until at least the day after to buy anything if we think it is absolutely necessary to get for one another. We both work too hard to throw out money on a fabricated holiday. Yes, I know, there is a chance the exact item you want to purchase might not be there, but think about it…did you really need to get your girlfriend a fifty-two inch teddy bear complete with a heart inscribed with “I love you schmoopy bear?” Is it really going to be that important five years down the road? Is it really going to show how you feel for a person, or is it just going to take up space? These companies feed into the lie that Valentine’s Day has to be over the top.

Do yourself a favor.

If you absolutely have to celebrate Valentine’s Day, make something yourself. Get in touch with your creative side. Or, if you can wait the extra few days, hit up the stores at their loss by getting the items for half-price. Think of the money you will save! People who do want to celebrate the day don’t have to go broke doing so. If you don’t, you might as well follow these steps: 1.) get a lighter 2.)remove the money you have in your wallet  3.) proceed to light it on fire.  Happy Rip Off Valentine’s Day!

Lindsay: I hate Valentine’s Day.

I haven’t always; in fact, this is a development that occurred in concurrence with my teenage years. In elementary school, I used to get pretty excited over the opportunities that arose for free candy and little cardboard cards to be distributed among my classmates. As I got older, and the opposite sex came into play, I found myself dreading the 14th of February, regardless of my relationship status.

When attached, I always panicked over what to get whatever boyfriend I had at the time; when single (which, more often than not has been the case), I found myself feeling like a third wheel all day.
I have always wondered who came up with the idea that people need one designated day out of the year to show love. What can single people do on V-Day? It’s horribly awkward to go out anywhere, knowing full well that you will most likely end up surrounded by lovey-dovey couples clinging to each other as if they were born that way. Perhaps even stranger is the fact that Valentine’s Day was originally a Catholic holiday to commemorate Saint Valentine, martyred at the hands of the Romans on that day for marrying Christian couples behind the emperor’s back. I suppose that it’s romantic in a way, but in the long run, the man was killed for his faith: not an altogether romance-inspiring notion. Over the years, the holiday became a version of itself bastardized by the corporate world for profit (shocking).

It’s generally more satisfying, in my experience, to take this day as a personal day. I prefer to spend the day with friends, by the pool if weather permits, and maybe out to dinner to quietly mock all the newfound lovebirds who can’t keep their hands off each other. An equally satisfying approach is to stay at home all day in pajamas, eating whatever you can get your hands on and watching movies. I myself watch movies that err a little more on the violent side, just for the ironic value, but I won’t say that the occasional Audrey Hepburn movie hasn’t made its way into my queue.

Though I myself am attached this Valentine’s Day, I still have no plans to celebrate it. Instead, I prefer to throw my sympathies to the singles community. When all is said and done, romantic relationships are a beautiful thing, but they are not quite the necessity that the barrage of greeting cards and assorted trinkets touted for the 14th of February would have you believe. Singles are people too, and I ask you to remember them this Valentine’s Day.