There’s no other “holiday” more hated than Valentine’s Day by the service industry worker. Why you ask? How do I put this the right way without sounding ungrateful, bitter, jaded, hateful, and downright evil? Well, first, there’s a lot of pressure. Huh? Isn’t it the same as any other night service? Hahahahahaha. No. The management is always extra super uptight for no reason. We’re overstaffed, so any time I turn around there’s someone doddling around in my way. There’s usually a special menu of some sort that veers from the norm which sort of throws a wrench into the “auto-pilot” mode we all want to be on. People, the guests who come in are also different as well. What can this possibly mean? I don’t know but it’s true.

On the holiday scale of hatred only Mother’s Day and New Year’s Eve even compare. I wracked my brain last night thinking of why. Hmmm. No it wasn’t the one woman who tried four tastes of wine while I was deep in the weeds (sigh, you’re only in the weeds if you care) or the other one who vacillated for five minutes on a cocktail, then didn’t enjoy it, then proceeded to taste three wines. Are people only this indecisive when they go out to eat or do they display this same inability to make a choice in their everyday life as well? If so, I feel total pity for humanity.

“Tell me about the bread and butter?” What do you want to know, dude? “What’s good tonight?” Huh? Do you think a team of chefs work hard on an entire menu to make only one or two things on it palatable? “The chicken, is it good?” I fucking hate this question most of all. I like the chicken, I don’t know if it’s good, or bad, or evil, or neutral chaotic. I’m hoping it had a great home life and provided love for its family before its head was chopped off and it was shipped out to us, amidst a horror show of other fowl cadavers squeezed into a waxed cardboard box and sitting in a slurry of viscous pink liquid before showing up at our doorstep and being massacred into sections, fondled and cooked for upper middle class enjoyment.

The ire of the front of house worker is based mostly upon the depression that ensues when you realize just how stupid people are. I get it, you go out, you don’t want to do dishes, you don’t want to think, you’ve had a long day as an automaton sitting in front of a computer. Yes, this is my job and you tip me according to some weird preset idea because I otherwise would make only minimum wage and have to live with my family in some pachouli scented hippie coop two hundred miles outside of the city. Still, even deep in the bowels of my most empathetic me, I continue to ask the question, “Are people really this stupid?” The answer, my two or three existing readers, is yes.

I’m usually not even close to this hateful, even after New Year’s Eve.

Rants notwithstanding, I figured it all out.

A quick aside: I can only report my thoughts and feelings from a heterosexual male viewpoint. Ok? Ok. Let’s continue.

I pinpointed exactly why Valentine’s Day is the worst. It’s because the typical American male is a unimaginative boob who has been forced to care and spend extra money for a made up, contrived holiday which only exists to slightly boost the economy during a massive lull after the holidays and if he does have a significant other and doesn’t comply to the status quo of dinner, flowers, chocolate, etc. he’s totally fucked. He’s been forced into a rotten, no win situation and so what does he do? What does he think is the best idea to show he gives a shit even when he doesn’t? He makes a reservation at a restaurant.

Here’s the thing. Men listen up. If you’ve taken your girl to some restaurant on Valentine’s Day you’re officially an asshole. It means you haven’t prepared anything. You want to get laid don’t you? Cook her dinner at home. Put some candles (women have a strange and unreasonable fondness for candles) and flowers ( an obvious metaphor for life, death, the vagina, etc.) on the table, get a decent bottle of wine. Done. The bedroom is right there. You don’t have to drive anywhere, find parking, etc. You’re welcome. You just went out of your way to do something nice which you should be doing on a regular basis more than once a year instead of going to a restaurant full of the same unthoughtful idiots (not you, N&L, love you guys). Yes, because those are the only types who go to restaurants on Valentine’s Day. The real chingons do the romantic shit.