Calling Cupid: Please Send Gourmet Grub

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Mathew 4:19 Come after me and I will make you fishers of men.

Remember when you were a little kid and you had to make your Valentine’s Day box? Sure you do.
 
Every year, school children from kindergarten (I guess I’m so old that I was pre pre-school?) through about sixth grade, I guess, would have to make a special receptacle for the dozens of tiny cardstock greetings everyone would pass out to their classmates that day.
 
Most of us just decorated a shoe box with red tissue paper with some white doilies cut into heart shaped designs. Fine, our Moms helped us, whatevs.
 
And there was, of course, always that annoying girl (sorry but it was always a girl) whose Mom created some Martha Stewart extravaganza complete with a motorized, mirror disco ball and featuring authenticharpsicord musical selections, all while doling out gumballs and blowing bubbles… Grr. She was super irritating but her Mother usually always sprang for full-sized candy bars. I digress.
 
Funny, isn’t it, how when you were a kid, all it took to make you happy on “Valentimes” Day was a little paper-flapped card with like, Cinderella or Scooby Doo on the front.Plus those little Necco heart candies with “Be Mine” or “Kiss Me” or “Cute Stuff” (among a plethora of other silly seasonal sayings) sprayed onto the fronts of the tiny sweets. I’m pretty sure they’d be outlawed in schools today for suggestive messaging and unacceptable corn syrup levels.
 
Sigh.
 
Actually, I always preferred the SweeTarts versions myself; they were bigger and suavely imprinted -- and didn’t taste like chalk. Either way.
 
Ooh and chocolates. Who are we kidding? Everybody wanted a huge box of chocolates from Whitman’s or Russell Stover’s with all its mysterious flavors hidden beneath creamy, rich chocolate.
 
This was before the names Godiva and Harry & David meant anything to me…cut me some slack, I was eight, yo.
 
By the time I was in my late teens/early 20s. I understood well the distinction between a tiny drugstore sampler versus, let’s say, huge box of Ghirardelli confections. The lattermost giver was way more affection invested, no? You betcha.
 
Naturally today, the “holiday” is a gold mine for the Sherri’s Berries andTommy John undergarments (EW, BT dubs), not to mention the thousands of companies who mass produce 85-pound overstuffed teddybears or 18 lb. boxes of chocolates and of course $8M Tiffany’s diamond rings.
 
But what does the average grown-up really want for Valentine’s Day in 2019? I interviewed some pals for their dream list submissions; here’s an amalgamation of my findings, in no particular order:
 
-Somebody to unload the dishwasher.
-Magically folded laundry.
-A fully-stocked fridge/pantry (READ: someone to make the grocery store run).
-Dinner. Order it, make it, take me to it ---- just don’t make me cook.
-A foot rub or massage --- or both.
-A full gas tank and wiper fluid dispenser.
 
One pal told me how, once her husband got her a Dairy Queen cake but because they didn’t have any Valentine’s ones available, he took a regular one home and cut it into the shape of a heart for her.
 
Before she even finished her story, my own sappy heart melted.#ThatsAmore
 
At the end of the Valentine’s Day (and the 364), all the humans really want are kind, supportive, thoughtful gestures coming from a place of love, Capisce?
 
But, just to be on the safe side, one can never go wrong with roses or a fine jewelry selection from Tiffany’s, just sayin’.
 
Kimerer is a Tribune Chronicle columnist who just wants all Valentines to be happy…and wouldn’t a massage, either. Send her sweet nothings at www.patriciakimerer.com

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