Valentine’s Day (aka Worst! Holiday! Ever!) is a mere nine days away.  Guys - are you looking for the perfect gift?  Are you in the dog house and in need of rescue?  There is nothing like a little poem to cheer her right up.  And I am going to provide one for you, free of charge!  I found this little ditty several years ago in a Gene Weingarten column.  Gene Weingarten is a humor writer for the Washington Post.  If memory serves me correctly, he wrote this.  But I bet a lot of you could reproduce it with your own handwriting in a fruity pink card and give it to your lovely(ies) and they would never know the difference!*  Enjoy!

 To refute the thought that males are clods,

And romantically inept, I offer up a Valentine

To those with whom we’ve slept.

Whoops, that was crasser than I meant.

May no offense be taken.

(While trying to be sweet as jam,

Men often sound like bacon.)

I mean this as a tribute

To our girlfriends and our wives,

The very folks without whom

We’d live unexamined lives.

We admit we’re fixer-uppers

And we know how much you’d care

To remodel this old eyesore

Into a darling pied-a`-terre.

Some things, alas, just cannot change.

We’re hopeless on minutiae.

We’ll never learn the difference

Between “violet,” “mauve” and “fuchsia.”

We’ll never get the hang of which

Utensil’s on the right

Or why you have to make the bed

Before getting in at night.

We’re not good with our emotions,

However hard we try,

And we know our lack of feeling

Is enough to make you cry.

And cry and cry and cry some more,

A weeping, bawling mewlery.

Thank God we’ve learned the cure for this

Is nice, expensive jewelry.

The purpose of this poem

(Please ignore missteps above)

Is to make you understand that

What we feel for you is love.

It’s love for all the things you are

And — I’m not sure how to put it —

For something else I would explain

If only I understood it.

We love the fact that even when

You’re sweating like a sow

You manage to smell better

Than us at rest, somehow.

Or, in parking, how you manage

To always (what’s that verb?)

Smooosh the right rear tire

Right up against the curb.

We know that we are less mature,

That our follies leave you seething.

We fritter time while you pursue

Thinner thighs through tantric breathing.

You help us guard against excess

With lists of don’ts and do’s.

On these you put your foot down,

In one of your six thousand, four

hundred twenty-seven pairs of nearly

identical but subtly different and

obviously essential shoes.

We like that when we tell you jokes

You will with laughter burst,

Then joyfully retell them

With all the punch lines first.

The movies that you love to share

(I’m thinking now of Gina)

Are very nice, except they could

Dishearten a hyena.

You think that we are louts and boors,

And condescending varmints.

But we forgive you, ’cause you wear

Those splendid undergarments.

See, we really understand you

In almost every way,

Except for everything you do

And everything you say.

In short, you drive us wild with want

And also up a wall.

We wish you’d change in every way

And also not at all.

*Plagiarism is wrong.  Don’t do it.