I was having coffee today with this guy I know, let’s call him Frank, real bummer of a guy, always has a problem with something, you know the type, and as we were walking home we saw this guy rushing out of a CVS store -- middle-aged guy in a bad-fitting suit, receding hairline, bit of a paunch — hurrying to his beat-up sedan, a heart-shaped box of mass-produced Valentine’s Day chocolates tucked under his arm, no doubt filled with cheap raspberry truffles and lame chocolate-covered raisins, and Frank laughed and said, “Look at that pathetic fuck, will you?” and I said, “Yeah, ha-ha,” and Frank said, “Buying what they tell him, like a sheep, like a fucking lemming,” and I said, “Not me, man, not me,” and Frank said, “I mean the whole stupid holiday was created by Hallmark, for God’s sake,” and I said, “What a sucker!” and the guy suddenly stopped, like he forgot something, and he turned and raced back inside, his tie flapping around, and Frank was cracking up and he said, “Whoops, I guess he forgot to give more money to Nestle!” and a moment later the guy ran out with the chocolates in one hand and a bouquet of $10 roses in the other, and Frank snorts and says, “Yeah, that’s what we need, Buddy, more destruction of the environment to make Corporate America richer!” and I laughed, too, but something about the guy, climbing into his beat-up sedan and hurrying home, so put out but so determined, something about him got to me, and as Frank laughed, all I could think was that there was someone, somewhere, that this guy stopped to think about, even if it was just for a moment, and that sure it was cliched and it was cheesy and it was obvious, but the guy stopped, didn’t he, just to get that someone, somewhere, something sweet and then also something beautiful, and so I stopped and headed inside, too, and Frank followed me inside and started hectoring me, right there in the Valentine’s Day aisle, and he was saying, “No way, Dude, no way you are falling for this shit too, you WUSS!” and I turned to him, right there in the Valentine’s Day aisle, and I shouted, “FOR FUCK’S SAKE, FRANK, IT'S ONE FUCKING DAY WHERE PEOPLE BUY EACH OTHER CHOCOLATES AND FLOWERS, ONE FUCKING DAY OF LOVE, HOWEVER COMMERCIALIZED, ON A FUCKING PLANET MIRED IN WAR AND HATRED AND JUDGEMENT, AND BY THE WAY YOU DRIVE A FUCKING TOYOTA, FRANK, AND YOU WEAR NIKES AND YOU CARRY A GODDAMN IPHONE SO SPARE ME THE FUCKING CORPORATE AMERICA SHIT, YOU MISERABLE FUCK!” except that I didn’t really shout any of that because Frank isn’t real, Frank is inside me, Frank is me, but the whole thing really pissed Frank off, and he gave me shit all the whole way home, and even once I was inside my apartment with my family, and he ranted and he raved about how stupid the whole thing was but me and my wife and kids were already in the kitchen, tearing open the heart-shaped box of mass-produced chocolates and play-fighting over the cheap raspberry truffles and shouting “THE CARAMEL ONES ARE MINE, YOU CAN HAVE THE LAME CHOCOLATE-COVERED RAISINS!” so I couldn’t hear his miserable ass anyway.