Valentine’s Day Column 2.0 (Gifts edition)

Valentines Day Column 2.0 (Gifts edition)

Ah yes, Valentine’s Day. ‘Tis the day to spoil your significant other, and it is also the ideal day to curl up in a corner and question your life choices as you cough up hundreds of dollars in order to please the parasite known as your boyfriend or girlfriend. As if losing money wasn’t bad enough, it’s also tricky to know what your significant other wants–and that’s what we’re here for. So strap in because we are taking you right into the danger zone (also known as Valentine’s Day shopping).

Gifts for him: Audrey

1. Cologne. Buying a boy cologne is kind of a hit or miss. They could not enjoy the scent you picked, but chances are they will like it since you probably share similar scent preferences. Anyway, it’s not really whether they enjoy it or not because you’re the one smelling it so shouldn’t you be the one that likes it most?

Kenneth’s Response: Oh yes, nothing like the oppressive scent of everything that is manly and irritating. If guys do end up not liking the cologne, their only real option is to suck it up since hurting their lady’s feelings is probably 10x worse. Until then, stay strong and live through the vile stench, chap.

2. Framed picture. Framing a picture of the two of you is an easy and inexpensive gift. It is even something sentimental that he will be able to look at everyday. Make sure when picking the picture you pick his favorite.

Kenneth’s Response: You know what they say about a picture, right? One of them contains 1,000 words. This means that you should pick a picture where your face doesn’t say “Get me out of this living nightmare,” or “I’m being held against my own will.” [Cue in Photograph by Nickelback].

3. Tickets to his favorite sports team. This is a pricey gift but if you’ve been together for a while it may be more appropriate than if you’ve only been together for a few months. If you score tickets to his favorite hockey or basketball team he’ll be nothing short of impressed. You’ll win major brownie points for sure. An alternative if he doesn’t like sports is tickets to his favorite band or musician.

Kenneth’s Response: Yo, I’m breaking out of character just to say that this is probably the most awesome thing that any girl could do for her boyfriend. Seriously. Alright, back to the topic of everything being about me, and how sarcastic, snarky, and clever I think I am.

4. A “basket” of his favorite things. If you like the personalization of a framed picture but felt it wasn’t enough, this is just taking that idea to the next level. Favorite snacks, pictures, and candy would be a good idea, favorite movie or tv series on disc, favorite artist on a CD, gift card to his favorite place, and small things like that.

Kenneth’s Response: Aww look, it’s like a time capsule, but instead of awesome stuff like moon shoes, Pokemon figurines, and your snot-covered YuGiOh cards, you get oogly couple stuff. Ick, growing up sucks, doesn’t it?

5. Your time. What is a better gift than giving your significant other your time and undivided attention? An option is to plan a day out for the two of you, and since Valentine’s day is on a Saturday this year, that makes things 10x better because you have the whole day together. Many couples young and old go out to eat or go out on dates on Valentine’s day. To avoid traffic or even hours of waiting just to get into the most popular restaurant in town, you could have a night in and make dinner together and rent a movie instead of going to see one. It will make your Valentine’s Day more relaxed and take a lot of pressure off of the day because you’ll get to spend time alone rather than with hundreds of other couples out to eat or at the movies.

Kenneth’s Response: Movie date? Dinner date? Dental appointment date? Bah, it’s all the same. It’s nothing more than the same generic date over and over again, but you know what? Why not give your usual date a bit of a twist? Who says your dinner date has to be fancy and well thought out? Try something new and challenging, like eating spaghetti while skydiving, or snuggling while skateboarding down a ramp. Either way, if you’re gonna do something, then you might as well make your time worth it, and make sure what you’re doing is something you’ll be smiling about for the next 80 years. Young love’s pretty nice, huh?

Gifts for her: Kenneth

1. Let’s keep it basic for step 1, and go with chocolates. As you may all know, women ARE rocket science. Having said that, chocolates are a good way to go because let’s face it, who doesn’t love them? (If anyone who’s reading this happens to be diabetic, please forgive my close-minded view of the universe.) Trust me, my experience with women TOTALLY goes beyond the limits of dating simulators for my computer.

Audrey’s Response: I mean I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be happy with getting chocolate on Valentine’s day. But just chocolates could make you seem very last minute and ill prepared and leave her wondering if you even remembered what day Valentine’s is.

2. The next course of action is to write her a lovely poem. Now, this course is rather risky as your lady could take your nice words into something more of an insult. What do I mean by that? It’s simple, if you slack off with the poem and basically copy and paste all the cutesy poems they have online, your girl will know. It’s hard to explain, but it is scientifically proven that girls are engineered to be as keen as an english teacher when it comes to cute poems, so tread lightly. Not only that, but this is also illegal since this is plagiarism, so please credit your sources at the back of your poem, and properly attribute your quotes when you do this.

Audrey’s Response: That is very true, any girl will know if you copied a quote or phrase off of the internet. If you’re writing her something, make it heartfelt and show you put some effort into it rather than scribbling down a phrase on a dirty napkin you thought of over breakfast that morning.

3. Another couple-y thing that you could do is take her to the mall. Once you arrive, your girl will switch to autopilot, and direct you to all the stores that she wants to go to, so this will make things a lot easier. However, this doesn’t mean you get to sit back and do nothing. It’s a more subtle fact, but the mall is a deathtrap–and this is where you need to be good with words. Buying your girl a nice looking dress may seem like an easy task, but it’s the compliment that you say after she shows it that will mark you as a survivor or a dead man. Also, this isn’t a metaphor since girls have built in lasers that will turn you into ashes if you say something that they do not like (it’s how my virtual avatar died when I was dating my virtual girlfriend).

Audrey’s Response: Props Kenneth, very creative. This sounds like a wonderful out of the box idea but only if you’re planning on taking her out somewhere in her new dress. What’s the point of a new dress if you have nowhere to wear it? Also, I’m terribly sorry to hear about your avatar. We’ve all been there.

4. If you somehow feel that the gifts above aren’t good enough for your girl, then join me as we step into the big leagues. By big leagues, I’m talking about jewelry and expensive stuff, or just about anything that screams commitment. Before we continue, can I just say you’re either crazy for doing this, or you’re simply in love. Either way, you’re bonkers for doing this. I mean come on, can you imagine how many chicken nuggets you can afford with this kind of budget? Where was I? Oh yes, jewelry. I don’t know, just buy something that’s really sparkly. I wouldn’t know since most of my money is spent on feeding my ego and covering up the fact that I’m secretly jealous of all the couples out there by buying excessive amounts of accessories for my razor scooter.

Audrey’s Response: If you buy jewelry for your girl we will know if you went to a jewelry store or picked something up in Walmart’s jewelry section. And that won’t really get you anything but a fake smile. If you do get jewelry for your girl make sure it’s something she will wear. One of the easiest tips to recognize is whether she wears more rings, bracelets, earrings, or necklaces. Pick whichever is the most popular and also make sure you know if she prefers silver or gold because that can make or break your pricey gift.

5. And now, option #5. Prepare yourselves, men, as this is probably the riskiest, and the simplest of all the options. So, what’s option #5? Basically, the plan is to take her out to a nice dinner date. Option #5 is your backup plan when things fall apart, and you fail to present your gal any form of a gift. Odds are, this will leave your girl rather mad, and you are now a couple seconds away from being terminated by her lasers, as she unveils her true robotic form. This is the part where you have to move fast, and bring her to any decent restaurant, may it be Denny’s or any 5-star restaurant in your vicinity. Only time will tell what happens from then on. Good luck, soldier.

Audrey’s Response: Thing is, it’s Valentine’s Day, the most romantic holiday of the year and you expect that every restaurant will be able to fit you in on last minute notice? Think again. If dinner is your plan then you’ve got to step on it and make reservations the day before or if you’re lucky morning of. Restaurants fill up quickly with all of the other couples whose boyfriend was too lazy to think of anything more creative to do. But since this is your option five, maybe you should just get a frozen pizza instead and hope for the best.

This concludes our February column. We hope you enjoyed it, and we thank you for feeding our egos even more. Stay tuned for more tips. ‘Till then, peace out, and have a wonderful day with your significant other.