I always get irritated about this time of year because the holidays are not over. We've just gotten through the holiday season and most people go on about their business of putting away decorations and buying new calendars and committing to new resolutions for about three weeks. 

 Now, the most important of all holidays is crashing down upon us like a friggin' two-ton hooker straddling a bar stool. 

Yes, V-Day, and I’m not talking about the hooker and her need for penicillin here. I’m talking about the one day of the year that we Packers have to get right to keep our Poodles happy for the next 12 months.

Now, if you've read my article over the last six years, you know I usually offer ideas about gifts not to buy your poodles on V-Day - creepy stalker gifts, cheap dumb-ass gifts that will never get you the hoo-nanny - and I have of course offered handy ideas for the perfect gift. 

But not this year. Let's be clear that my beautiful wife, the ultimate poodle, the very inspiration for the creation of the coined term of poodle is very worthy of the best that I can give her. That has always been the case but, early on, we did not exchange V-Day gifts.  As a matter of fact, the great pressure of making this woman happy has been an evolution. 

Our first year together, we knew that our love was so special that every day was V-Day. We would never reduce celebrating our love to just one lousy day of the year. We went through a hellish year to be together and it cost me a lot of money in divorce fees, buying marital houses, attorney's fees, trading in cars, buying out car leases, and cashing in vacation days. Suffice it to say that we deserved to be the most hokey couple at the time.

We spent that first V-Day in our little love nest apartment eating ravioli out of can and telling each other how much we loved the other, as we did each night.  Of course, later on that night I hit that “hoo-nanny goodness,” but that wasn’t a V-Day gift - it was a life day gift.

Year two we tried to stick to the not celebrating V-Day, but I had experienced another year with this beautiful woman and I just couldn’t let it go by without something. I waited until the day after V-Day (so it wasn’t technically a V-Day gift or memory), and I had a friend set up a ton of candles in a parking garage, a place my lady-love and I frequented often to “talk.” 

When we drove up, there was a blanket placed down in the glow of the candles and a huge-ass ring in my pocket. Yes, I proposed to her on our second V-Day, although it wasn’t technically V-Day so I guess we were true to our word of not celebrating just one day.

By our third V-Day we were married and still trying to say we weren’t celebrating love because our love was perfect every day. But, let's face it, you can't marry a chick and then not buy her a V-Day gift. 

I mean, she works with people and she has spent every day of the past year telling these losers how amazing you are.  Just try to sneak by without sending anything to her office on V-Day. 

I sent to her an aphrodisiac cookbook titled Intercourses along with a dessert prepared from the book and a message saying "There's more where that came from." When she came home that night, I had prepared a meal from the cookbook and, yep, I hit it.

I could go on and on about the other four Un-Valentine's Days that we shared, but I think you are starting to get the picture.  We celebrate V-Day on our own terms. There have been pajama grams, letters in bottles, diamond earrings and permanent tattoos.  I mean, shit ya’ll, it don’t get anymore un-Valentiney than that! 

I need to sum up here because I can’t ruin this year's surprise for my lovely lady. She does tend to read my article so I can’t tell you what I’m getting her, but I can tell you that it takes a lot of work and thought to better yourself each year.  And lets be clear; if some poodle decides to stay with your sorry Packer ass for another year, you owe her. She knows that you owe her, her mother knows that you owe her and her friends know that you owe her. So don’t disappoint me, my Packer friends. 

Thanks for reading, my true friends. Live and love equally! Christy can be reached at editor@outvoices.us.