Fernando's most-loathed time of year is the month-long stretch that falls between the middle of January and mid-February. The movie releases are horrible crap; all the good summer flicks come out mid-November through December, while all the Christmastime films don't begin appearing on home video until March. The only releases that had any real box office presence are the romantic comedies that must, by necessity, be released at this time and, without fail, perform spectacularly poorly because they were rushed out to meet the release date in question. So business is somewhat slow in this time despite the generally horrible weather encouraging people to stay indoors at every opportunity.
The other thing that raises Fernando's ire beyond the norm are the jewelry commercials. They appear everywhere with slowly increasing frequency until they peak during the week before February 14th. They consist of idiot men handing over useless, overpriced baubles to women while spouting pithy, meaningless declarations of “love” from their word-holes (thanks to Mister Half Face for creating this turn of phrase). Then, without fail, the two collapse into some horrific singularity of hand-holding and saliva exchanging as the jewelry company's catchphrase reverberates through all five senses simultaneously. Yes, five. Not only do you hear it and see words of it dancing across the television screen, but the world, for a brief moment, smells like poop spun into cotton candy as the selfsame taste fills one's mouth and every nerve suffers the tactile torture of giant isopods' spindly legs crawling everywhere. While covered in said poopy cotton candy.
The biggest problem Fernando has with those commercials is that they paint human relationships as things of immutable stasis, that they shall forever remain exactly as they always have been. Anybody who has even the slightest bit of worldliness should realize this is not the case. People are shallow, fickle creatures. Their proclivities flux, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Dropping a not insignificant amount of money onto a shiny object made from metal and rocks people arbitrarily have decided are of value is, well, dumb: twisty bits of metal that sit there like a paralyzed apple snail. Fernando could make some from old coat hangers and they'd be just as functional and half the time look less stupid.
The prices on gems are truly outrageous. They're truly, truly, truly outrageous. One could get a bunch of right fancy meals for the price of one hoop of silver. So here's an idea: how about, instead of wasting cash on a silly charm bracelet, these gallant men shell out the dough for a nice dinner. Hell, they'd get additional bonus points for cooking it themselves. Or buy something with better cost-value than a piece of jewelry, like clothing or a book. But taking those options would make sense and wouldn't fuel that queer and relentless competition for material comeuppance that exists in this day and age.
In the end, though, Fernando will remain derided by silly love freaks as a bitter misanthrope who can't understand the obvious, inherent beauty specific to the fourteenth of February, and who knows even less about little things like loyalty and commitment. And he will sit back and laugh and watch when, inevitably, said love freaks' lives are upended because they put childish faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.
But, man, having bought that platinum necklace encrusted with tanzanite will make it all have been worthwhile.
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