image credit Joni Edelman via Instagram
The last Valentine’s Day gift my husband bought me was a half-dozen chocolate-covered fancy Chilean strawberries that I could not even look at because I was nine weeks pregnant and the mere sight of food made me want to barf the entire contents of my stomach plus some of my small intestine. That was in 2010. So… eight years ago.
You might think I’d be pissed about this, but I’m not. I see Valentine’s Day for what it is, a capitalist’s paradise. Flowers are nice, but they die. Dinner is cool, but I don’t want to wait forever for my food on the busiest restaurant night of the year. The things I really want don’t have anything to do with Valentine’s Day at all.
And I don’t think I’m alone. I conducted an informal survey of other women (moms, mostly) and their answers weren’t that different from mine.
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It’s nothing you can buy at See’s or Hallmark or even Godiva (though, that is getting closer). You won’t see a commercial for it. Frankly, it’s a lot easier to buy a dozen roses on FTD.com than it is to do the things that women have been asking for since the dawn of time.
What do we really want for Valentine’s Day?
You to do those g-damn cards for the kids’ classroom parties.
No, despite what Pinterest and Instagram would have you believe, it’s not my life’s purpose to make 50 one-of-a-kind Valentines that these seven-year-olds are going to go home and throw in the garbage.
Someone to scrub the toilets.
Preferably you, though someone you hire would also be fine. Just don’t make me hire them. Don’t make me find them or call them or schedule them around the 700 other things I’m juggling. Just tell me when the toilet scrubbing is going to happen and I’ll leave.
For people to quit acting like working from home is some kind of blessed gift.
I mean, it IS. I’ll take it over going to an office every day of the week and twice on Sunday. But it’s also really hard. Working from home means any time there is a crisis, I have to cope with it. Someone gets a bloody nose at school. The dog gets her paw slammed in the garage door. Everyone gets the flu.
I’m the default. I would like for once to not be the default.
People to turn their clothes right side out before they put them in the hamper.
(Provided they are getting to the hamper at all.)
I don’t want to stick my hand inside of any sock. Can you just DO IT? For the love of all that is sacred. I already wash AND fold them (you could also fold them if you're feeling ambitious).
A pint of Ben and Jerry’s that no one else can touch.
It’s just mine. I don’t have to try to hide it so that when I open the freezer in three days there is still some left and not just the icy bits stuck to the sides. Have you ever had PMS that made you crave chocolate so bad that you’d take it from a baby?
Stop eating my ice cream.
A uterus "Off" button.
Speaking of PMS, a guy just put a rocket on Mars or some shit. Why has no one taken the time to invent a way to just shut your uterus off when you're done having kids without having to remove it entirely?
A bath.
A. Lone.
A nap.
Not a cat nap. Not a power nap. A nap. One that ends when I want it to.
I'm tired. We are tired. Being a woman is really bullshit sometimes.
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