This is For All the Lonely People

Hello Young Lovers wherever you are! This Sunday is Valentine's Day. This is one of those completely unnecessary Holidays that is here simply so that manufacturers of romantic merchandise can unload more of their inventory on gullible consumers. People in a relationship don't need a special day of the year to let their nearest and dearest know how they feel about them. We can say, "I love you", "I'm so glad you're mine" or "Get out of my house I never want to see you again", whenever we like.

True, it is nice to set aside a special day to surprise your sweetie with a loving token of your affection. What if you don't have a sweetie, though? For those folks out there without a special someone/something in their lives, Valentine's Day can be a bitter reminder of their lonely status. It doesn't have to be that way though!

Sure, there are a lot of wonderful things about being in a loving cohabitation: The smile on your loved one's face when you return home after a long day. Sharing all the joys, sorrows and bills with your best friend. Not to mention the occasional roll in the hay. These truly are the moments that make life worth living, and those single folk out there without a significant other can only watch in envy.

To all you singular folks out there, though, turn that frown upside down! You have plenty of things to celebrate! To name a few:

• You come home to complete silence. Sure, it's nice to come home to a loving embrace. Isn't is nice though, to come home to complete and utter nothingness? No noisy coworkers, no questions to answer, just the pure  bliss of you. Alone with your thoughts.

• What's for breakfast/lunch/dinner? When you live alone, the answer is: Anything you want! With no one else to have to plan meals with, you can eat how you please! Cold Kentucky Fried Chicken™ for breakfast? Ice cream sandwiches for lunch? Potato chips and Slim Jims™ for dinner? Go ahead! You have no one to critique how you build your food pyramid.

• Watch what you want, when you want. There's a Deputy Dawg marathon on TV, but it's opposite the Project Runway finale. If you're living with someone else, this might cause a problem. Not for you, you lucky, "lonely" person!

• Home Decor. If you live with another, they might not agree with you that lawn furniture is acceptable in the living room, or that your life-size Darth Vader bust is the perfect focal point for the Dining room. That is, if you even choose to have a Dining room. Perhaps you would rather have a "stuff" room, and fill/pile it with various items you are too busy/lazy to find the perfect spot for. If you live alone, no one but you cares, so you can! Try getting a partner to agree to this arrangement!

• The definition of "Clean" is yours, and yours alone. A normal person (like me), knows that every month or two is often enough for such tasks as "vacuuming", "cleaning the bathroom" and "emptying the garbage". When you live with someone else, however, you might be  surprised to discover that they consider such time-wasters weekly tasks! Strange, I know, but there really are people who feel that way.

• Complete. Utter. Privacy. Wanna walk around the house in your underwear, or less? Unless you have a really understanding partner, it ain't gonna happen. Ditto for weeping at cartoons from your childhood, going to the bathroom with the door open, playing Alan Sherman records for hours and a host of other things that polite society frowns upon.

There are plenty of other reasons for you singletons to celebrate your alone-ity, but you get the gist. Believe me, there are plenty of "happy couples" out there who are far  more envious of you  than you are of  them.

I'm not one of them though. I have the Perfect Wife, and if I didn't have her around, no amount of sitting in my underwear eating cold chicken and watching cartoons could substitute for how  happy she makes me. 

Besides, she doesn't mind if I have cold KFC for breakfast. The open bathroom door is another matter, though.

Happy Valentine's Day, all!