Return to Sender: It's Called a HoliDAY for a Reason

Dear Retailers (Again):

Today is December 22 (Happy Birthday, Grandma!). That means yesterday, obviously, was December 21. Four days (I'm good at subtraction) prior to Christmas. So what I'm confused by, is, yesterday, I walked into a certain large retail chain to pick up a few prescriptions, and saw, on a display for snack foods, HEART-shaped snack cakes.

Heart. Shaped. Snack cakes.

Gag me with a spoon.

Further perusal of the store (I was morbidly curious, by this point) showed that not only was this particular retailer preparing for Valentine's Day with its simple-carbohydrate, corn-syrup-sweetened, pink-iced snack foods, but also that the leftover Christmas ornaments, decorations, movies, CDs, books, and other gifts, had been maligned to a back corner of the store under "70% OFF!!!" signs (and well they should be... if you've waited this long to get ready for Christmas, you deserve a discount). Where the Christmas miscellany had been, there now existed sickeningly sweet candies, red and gold and pink streamers, and perforated cartoon-themed Valentines (did anyone know that the Smurfs are back in?).

There are fifty-three days until Valentine's Day.

(Don't quote me on that: I'm better at subtraction than addition, apparently.)

To put that into perspective, here is an alphabetical list of mammals that can have sex today and give birth by or before Valentine's Day:

• Dwarf Mongoose (50 days)
• Elephant Shrew (45 days)
• Ferret (43 days)
• Flying Squirrel (37 days)
• Fox (55 days—like I said, I'm bad with math)
• Gerbil (26 days)
• Hamster (18 days)
• Hedgehog (35 days)
• Kangaroo (40 days, although, to be fair, that probably doesn't include the time the joey spends in his mother's pouch)
• Meadow vole (20 days)
• Mountain beaver (30 days)
• Mouse (21 days)
• Muskrat (29 days)
• Opposum (13 days)
• Rabbit (30 days)
• Rat (22 days)
• Red fox (52 days)
• Squirrel (40 days)
• Vole (21 days)
• Woodchuck (30 days)

That's a crapload of animals.

In fact, I think that, if we're going to start preparing for Valentine's Day, which is all about love anyway, this early, maybe we should have something to show for it at the end. So today, before you head out to Franklin Mills or King of Prussia or even (ick), the Gallery, why not go to the park, find two squirrels (no, we don't know how to identify their genders, either), and encourage them to get their freak on. Those babies will be awfully cute come February 14.

Please note: the author does not actually advocate irresponsible animal husbandry, no matter how cute the babies are.

Image via BlueBuddies.com.