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The Tea Maker
We know it’s crap, cheesy and costly but we also know the 14th February can mean the difference between extra points and no sex until the summer solstice, so you may as well try to get it right.
Valentine’s day is coming and if you want to follow suit, you should avoid the following gifts. The love of your life simply won’t appreciate them and she definitely won’t appreciate you telling her, “It’s the thought that counts!” because it isn’t, not unless your thoughts can stretch to sleeping on the couch for two months.
So, here are my 5 Top Tips on the gifts to avoid and the things to seriously consider instead.
1. DO NOT buy bathroom scales
Ok, she’s getting fat but, for fuck’s sake, it’s Valentine’s Day. This is not the time to drop hints about her extra pounds. In fact, a set of bathroom scales is no hint at all. You may as well buy her a lifetime membership to a gym and a subscription to Fat Fucker magazine.
Unless she already has her sights set on representing Team UK at the Rio Olympics, stay well away from anything that’s related to fitness. If she’s a slob, she won’t like you telling her she’s a slob. And even if she is a budding athlete, she won’t like you telling her to try harder.
Buy her a subscription to the Wine of the Month Club.
2. DO NOT buy her a self-help book about depression
Self-help books about depression don’t jolt people out of their depression. They do not turn them into jolly party-goers with a new zest for life and sexual experimentation. All these books do is reinforce the reasons why the depressed reader got depressed in the first place.
They then go on to explain, via a series of case studies, how others managed to overcome their feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, worthlessness and guilt by reading self-help books that they received as gifts from loved ones and psychiatrists. The summaries are always the same. Be yourself, take control and get a fucking grip.
And you know what that all adds up to. You’re right. More time on the sofa for you as she spends the rest of the year ‘finding herself’.
Buy her a subscription to Hello magazine.
3. DO NOT buy her a Gift Card
You would have to be the ultimate moron to go down this route. A gift card? Are you taking the piss? A gift card for what exactly? When you’re in the shop buying the gift card, why not spend a few minutes extra and buy the fucking gift?
What does a gift card say to a woman? I couldn’t choose! I didn’t have time to think about you or to spend time shopping for you! I know it’s Valentine’s Day but I’m a moron!
On second thoughts, if you’re such a moron and she’s going out with you or, worse still, she’s married to you, she probably deserves you so, go ahead…
…buy her a two thousand pound gift card. Anything less is a slap in the face.
4. DO NOT buy her a dozen red roses
Women only say they like flowers but they don’t really. It’s a relative thing. If they can’t have anything else, they’ll take the flowers but it’s not their first choice. Ask any hundred women at random if they like to be given a bunch of flowers and they are likely to say, “Yes!” But if you ask them what they would prefer to be given if they had a choice between a bunch of flowers and a Med Cruise or a new sports car, a weekend in a London Spa or a music tour along Route 66 on the back of a Harley and, suddenly, the flowers count for nothing.
Buy her something expensive, unexpected or imaginative.
5. DO NOT buy her an expensive, unexpected or imaginative vacuum cleaner
Trust me, a household appliance is not a good gift idea for Valentine’s Day. In fact, a household appliance is never a good gift idea at any time or for any gift giving occasion.
Even if she asks for one, don’t buy it. She’s testing you. If you do buy it, show her how smart you really are by adding a little something extra. Here are some great ideas to accompany kitchen appliances that will make her fucking head spin and put you in her good books for the rest of the year.
· She asks for a vacuum cleaner? Get her one but throw in a monthly maid service for a year.
· She asks for a set of new pans? Fine, but hire a chef every few weeks to visit the house and prepare a meal, just for the two of you.
· She asks for a new washing machine? Great! Tell her it will take two weeks to arrive. In the meantime, she’ll have to make do with the tumbling surf of Hawaii. Then present her with the tickets.
· If it’s a water heater she craves, whisk her off to Yellowstone to watch Old Faithful and the other geysers.
· If she says she really needs a new extractor fan? Buy it and leave her. Any woman who asks for a fucking extractor fan for Valentine’s Day is going to be trouble for the rest of your life. Get out now!
Happy Valentine’s Day
The Tea Maker
PS: You can comment on this story by emailing me at [email protected] and I’ll respond to your emails in next week’s column. We’ll never publish your email address.
