In the Mood for Love

I met my friend at Jurong Point for lunch a few hours ago.After the influx of Chinese New Year goodies, there is something else to celebrate. Its an unofficial holiday. But in no way less influential.

A quick stroll around the mall and Valentine's Day will be screeching in your face creeping up on you. There is no way you can miss the profusion of pink, heart-shaped trinklets and amorous words being marketed everywhere. There is a spike in the amount of useless impossibly cute soft toys like baby seals (in a pair), baby hedgehogs holding red hearts (in a pair), and cuddly turtles (two to go of cos).
Jewellery stores print glossy pamphlets with cliche themes like "LOVE STORY" (Goldheart) and "ROMANTIC EXPRESSIONS" (LEE HWA)and chuck them into the hands of browsers like moi and gal pal as we stopped by the window display, eager to cash in on the season of love.

Moi and gal pal made an observation with the 2 booklets which had found their way into our hands, in between gulps of Iced Milk Tea at Mos Burger. Both booklets had many pages filled with female jewellery, were doused with an unhealthy supply of hearts and hair-raising lines like 'Pink Passion', 'Love is everywhere' and TAKE THIS --> 'Love is the air i breathe' *oh my gawd! Gasps for air*
And both had 1 page featuring jewellery for MEN (one page with an ugly steel bracelet and ugly steel ring),no more no less. Queer isn't it?

Moi came to the following conclusion:

"Dear I love you and despite knowing that I've fallen pray to a giant marketing ploy, I'm willing to fork out $688(hypothetical sum--> add all the zeros you want) to buy you this bracelet/ring/pendant..."

"Oh Dear, I love you too, and to show my commitment and love for you, I shall give you a cheap and ugly ring too (@ $68)

Simple mathematics will tell you that the guy got a very bad deal. But hey, love can't be measured by $$ right?

Let me hypothesize where the remaining sum went.
33's equation:
$688 ring = $68 ring + **GROOMING
**GROOMING (cos guys like their gers to be pretty and pretty costs $$)

**GROOMING = FACIAL(so that you won't see clogged pores on my face)
+ REBONDING/PERM(so that i have nice tresses for YOU EVERYDAY) +
[THE NEW DRESS + THE NEW HEELS + THE NEW LINGERIE +
NEW LIPSTICK + XXX] (I dress up for YOU on this SPECIAL DAY)

Add it all up and both sides of the equation will balance.

Now on to another point ...

Anyone who has brains the size of a pea pod will know that Valentine's DAY is the Grand Dame of Marketing Ploys. We also know the 'St. Valentine sacrificed his life' shit is crap. Maybe once upon a time, it was really that, but with evil marketers around *laughs*, it has become a day to cash in on stingy hapless Singapore men, an annual opportunity for florists to cover their asses for the whole year.

Sometimes Valentine's day is thinly veiled by a more politically correct 'Friendship Day'and CCAS/hall commitees/Non-profit organizations/Anyone who needs $/ usually use this term when canvassing for funds. But being politically correct also means casting the net wider isn't it? After all not everyone has a date, but everyone has friends!

SO why are we still dumb enough to be forcing stingy men letting bfs/husbands pay through their noses for roses that wilt in a few days or pairs of baby hedgehogs that end up collecting dust?

33's hypothesis:
Cos women like to compete and few can bear the loss of 'face'.

When we were kids, we compared our precious collections of Strawberry Shortcakes/Barbies/Polly Pockets/Cupcakes (Not as phenomenal as the rest, but I absolutely LOVED the way the skirt flips over *i know it sounds sick* and turns the doll into a ..ehm yes.. a Cupcake. But my ma refused to buy me any so I would go to my friend's house to play.)*Lol*

Then came PSLE, Os and As.

Then we compare boyfriends.

Then husbands.

Then we become our mums and compare our kids' PSLE.

Its a cycle that goes round and round.

.. Therefore on the special day of pink passionate hearts... We compete to see how dearly our Dears love us. This has developed into such a scary phenomenom i remember from last year's Straits Times that women have even gone to the extent of delivering flowers to themselves at the office so as to save face.

The qualifying round is a date of cos.
The semi finals will be the size of your bouquet.
Those who make it into the finals will compare diamonds.

Whether its a rock or 'diamond dust' or ehm Perlini's (Only boys who cannot watch M-18 shows have student concession) will determine where you rank this year. Anything with Tiffany on it will automatically elevate you to the rank of 'show-it-off with a flutter of your fingers' while Perlini's is the ultimate nightmare rivalled only by a hedgehog.

Well at the end of the day, those who have the last laugh are evil marketers of cos. *Evil laughs*