10 Valentine's Day Gifts for Your Enemies

It's Valentine's Day Eve. Are you ready?

If I don't get enough chocolate to make me puke, I'll kill myself.

Not for the sappy celebration of Enthusiastic Tolerance for Other Human Beings, I mean. Everyone seems to have forgotten the real reason for this season. It hasn't always been about jewelry and chocolates and the desperate attempt to bribe your beloved with enough giant stuffed animals to make sure you'll never be lonely.

In the olden days, long before any saints wandered about getting soldiers hitched, there was a late-winter festival - a dark, macabre festival - to honor that most noble and primal passion: hatred of one's fellow man.

Oh, how I do loathe you.

Long ago, people used to spend the entire year seeking out the perfect victim for their Valentine's Day trickery. As spring arrived, all the young boys and girls picked out a special someone they found particularly repulsive. Then, all year long, they would give their target little gifts and compliments, bat their eyes and whisper sweet nothings. Slowly, the victim would begin to trust the suitor, flattered into thinking they might be lovable to someone - anyone.

Then, in the middle of a cold, gloomy February, these sad fools would receive a Valentine's Day surprise - perhaps a dead weasel, or a gently used condom. The truth would slowly sink in, just like the sticky liquid that was now all over their hands. And oh, how everyone would laugh! Such fun! they'd all shout. Hooray for Valentine's Day!

But now, no more. Nobody knows exactly when this most "romantic" holiday stopped being ironic and actually became about real sentiment, but most believe it happened roughly around 1910, when Joyce C. Hall started a little greeting card company in Kansas City, Missouri.*

I SAY ENOUGH!

This year, get back to the real roots of the holiday and celebrate the most repulsive people in your life! Here are a list of ten perfect gifts to give that special someone you secretly despise:

1. An angry snake in a basket.
   
   

   

   The Egyptian valentine of choice.

2. A mix tape.  Because no one listens to tapes anymore! And everyone will make fun of them! "Such cruelty," they'll whisper. And their tears will warp and destroy the tape so that not even an eraser-side-of-the-pencil can fix it.
   

   

   But just in case, fill it with Whale Songs layered over the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

3. Durian fruit, which is banned on planes because it smells so rancid and makes people sick. The perfect gift for someone who makes you want to throw up, too.
   

   

   Plus, it looks like a tiny, dead fetus. Romantic!

4. Speaking of nauseating, how about a Grow-Your-Own-Mung-Beans Kit!
   
   

   

   "Very nutritious, but they smell like death."

5. Or a bloody, severed finger with a note that says, "YOU'RE NEXT."
   
   

   

   I really regret searching for that now.

6. Some dirt.
   
   

   

   No need to wrap it!

7. Gloveless fingers, left over from all those hobo gloves. This is especially effective if your target is, in fact, a hobo.
   
   

   

   Hobo street cred, lost forever. (But what a meet cute!)

8. A blow-up chair. REMEMBER HOW FRUSTRATING THESE WERE?
   

   

   It's already deflating!

   
   
9. An old person.
   
   

   

   They're quite a responsibility.

10. Poison. Simple and elegant. Tie a little bow around it with a note that says, "TAKE ONE TSP. WITH EVERY MEAL.  DO NOT OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY."
    
    

    

    HOORAY FOR VALENTINE'S DAY!

* "What an informative blog!" said everyone. 

Images via My Feelings Only, The Hairpin, Kaboodle, The Beat, Ricovines, Domestic Observances, The Monkey Rodeo, Dogs Eat, Kristin's Eye, Fab, Soda Head, Tampa Govt.