The history of Valentine’s Day is very murky, but naturally, the Catholics think they’ve got it right. This much is true: There was once a Roman emperor named Claudius II who thought unmarried men made better soldiers, so he banned marriage. (See? This is why dictatorship is a bad idea. Idiot.)

A Catholic bishop named Valentine thought that was whack, so he kept marrying young couples. Claudius admired Valentine’s sense of justice, but, duh, Claudius was the emperor, so he chopped off Valentine’s head. The pope made him a saint, and a Hallmark holiday was born.

However! Pagans say the celebration was in place long before Valentine, and had to do with birds mating and the strange practice of whipping women with blood-soaked goat hides to make them more fertile. Look, I don’t make this stuff up. Then the church usurped the pagan tradition and plopped St. Valentine’s Day in its place because the church doesn’t like pagans.

How lucky are you that I research all this for you? You can impress your sweetie with this knowledge tonight as you stare at each other over a romantic dinner. WARNING: the blood-soaked goat hide whipping part is not meant as a foreplay suggestion.

Anyway, all four of the men who read my bloggity-blog might need some suggestions for last-minute ways to impress your significant other today. I’m here to help! Please note: these ideas are designed for married/attached men with children underfoot. If you are single and/or without young children messing up enhancing your life, just go to a movie or get laid or take a walk on the beach or do something else the rest of us vaguely remember doing.

1. Arrange for a babysitter ALL BY YOURSELF! You can do this, assuming you can remember even one babysitter’s name. Stealthily bring your spouse’s smart phone into the bathroom so you can copy the phone number – that gives you, what, a half-hour? However long you usually take in there.

2. If you’re going to bring flowers, do it right. Don’t bring a bunch of roses wrapped in cellophane and hand them to her while she’s feverishly boiling water for pasta and running to wipe the toddler’s butt and trying to get the cork out of the Chardonnay. Because then she’ll have to drop everything and find a vase and cut the stems and strip the thorns and arrange the baby’s breath, and by that time she’ll be mumbling, fucking roses. So buy them already in a vase, place them on the kitchen table, and go wipe the toddler’s butt without being asked.

3. Ask your in-laws to keep the children for a few days so you can whisk your sweetie off to Paris! ………..BWAAHAHAHAHAHA! But seriously.

4. Dude, change a light bulb or two already. Peeing in the dark is not a mystical experience after all.

5. Make a homemade card and a homemade present. You know what I wish someone would give me? A little seashell attached to a string of leather from the hardware store.

Okay, that’s all I got. I’m a little jaded from my college years, when I spent every Valentine’s Day wearing black in protest of being alone. Oh, which reminds me…if you are alone tonight? Please don’t be sad. I love Hot Firefighter Husband, I really do. Adore him. But being alone? In a house? Watching a movie? Wow. That kind of thing turns me on.

HAPPY V-DAY, PEEPS!

P.S. Here’s a picture of my Valentine’s Day present from Hot Firefighter Husband. It’s a redneck wine glass. For real. Holy Yellow Tail, he knows me so well. <3