Dolomite's Ranting
feb. 2000

     Welcome back to another Ranting, oh loyal readers of this wondrous magazine. Usually, during these brief interludes of sobriety before drunkenness, the Great and Nearly Benign Dolomite (which is I) tells a tale of sorrow and humor. Basically, you get the chance to laugh at my sorrow. Well, not today mister! Instead of a rare footage of humanity in this world or an anecdote to make you glad you were not me for those horrible five minutes when I was stuck on monkey island in the zoo, I am here to preach the downthrow of the holiday dubbed Valentine’s Day. It is an abomination and only serves to get men in trouble for forgetting another important day, as well as make women said for not being the one girl on the block showered with roses, chocolates, and erotic gifts. It must end!
     Now, many of you are wondering, “What did Valentine’s Day ever do to you Dolomite?” I will tell you what it did to me: It did nothing. In fact, it only made me miss having a female significant other, or at least the money to rent one for an hour. Oh Clarice, why must you cost so much? Huh… oh sorry about that. Lost my train of thought. Where was I… oh yeah, Valentine’s Day is evil.
     Now, before any of you lovesick and emotionally charged readers pass judgment on me as a grumpy and depressing excuse for a human being, hear me out. Valentine’s Day is the fuel of the fire for sexist behavior. Think of it. It is the man’s duty to secure his woman gifts. The usual gifts are flowers (roses are the top most prize in this category), candy (heart-shaped box of chocolates), and perhaps either an erotic gift (massage oil or “love coupons”) or a bottle of expensive liquor/wine/champagne. What does the man get? If he is lucky, he gets lucky. If not, he gets sent down a guilt trip for his troubles of not being the best husband on the block. All he will here for the next month in bed is “Janet’s husband got her two dozen long stem roses that he spread all over the bed as he made love to her. All you got me was one dozen short stem roses that were handed to me while I was having my morning coffee and I was not wearing make-up and you don’t love me and Rose’s husband got her a chocolate replica of himself and a bottle of $200 champagne and took her out for a night on the town and all you got me was a $80 bottle of white wine and a home-cooked dinner by candle light and you don’t really care for me at all and Marie’s husband got her…”
     Why must us guys be taunted by this grueling holiday? I know that many of my paranoid suspicions are wrong, such as the time I said that the Clinton affair was made up by Bill Gates to further his hold on the world’s bubble gum supply and the time I said that Dick Clark was actually Cary Grant’s older brother made younger through a rare cloning experiment in the 50’s that resulted in Dick Clark looking old until he was 60, then he would start to look good for his age after that. I admit being wrong when I said that aliens were taking over the French and that we should help them (the aliens, not the French). I know I was wrong when I said that Mark McGuire was actually kidnapped three years ago and replaced by a shaved and scientifically intelligent gorilla that could hit nearly 80 homeruns a season. But this time I am right! Valentine’s Day is a holiday that was made up by angry housewives and enforced by their “girlfriends” at the helm of the Chocolate and Flower industries. Just listen…
     Back in 1964, a radical group of ex-housewives met with current housewives in one of the current housewives’ basement under the disguise of a “tea social”. This “tea social” was actually the first of many diabolical planning stages for a worldwide brainwashing of male brains to think that the day of February 14 is actually a holiday in which we, the males, must get gifts for our wives and significant others or face the wraith and punishment that was earlier described.
     Since the technology to do this was experimental and expensive, they needed money. Bake sales and selling of socks only went so far (and you wondered where that one sock goes in nearly every wash load. They got connections to the manufacturers of dryers too!) . They needed more. Two of the ex-housewives made of few calls, a few favors that needed to be repaid. These calls were to the Red Roses of Rotunda (the nation’s second largest supplier of holiday flowers) and to the Real Big Chocolate Factory (a big chocolate factory somewhere out in the sticks that made the bulk chocolate that is used in all of those fancy chocolates). With these two companies working with the frustrated women, the plan was set in motion. With money borrowed from the two companies, combined with the money received from the selling of socks and baked goods, the women were able to purchase the necessary stock in NASA to command the board of directors to send up a little satellite into space during the next launch. On the eighth Challenger shuttle mission (held secret from the public and launched out of a military base entitled AREA 5I). Only a small group of hicks saw the launch, but they thought the sign read Area 51, so the true site was never found. With the satellite in place, the women had it send bizarre messages hidden within the broadcasts of sporting events worldwide. And so it became that us men folk believed ourselves to be responsible of giving women lavish gifts on this day in February.
     Do not lose hope men of the world. There is a resistance building. The reissuing of Instant Replay in the NFL is one of the many ways that men are secretly trying to detect and erase the messages sent over these airwaves. Another is the creation of separate sporting leagues, such as Arena Football and the European League. Neither has been very successful, but hopes are rising. Already, bosom-enhanced cheerleaders are on their way to every sporting event to distract the male viewers into not hearing the messages played over the airwaves. Soon, even pro golf and tennis will have cleavage-showing, short skirt wearing cheerleaders to make sure that the few male viewers watching those events are protected. But be careful of whom you spread this news to. They know of us in the resistance. They will enslave us to work in Kathie Lee’s sweatshops. Spread the word and viva la resistance!

Dolomite

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