22 Awesomely Terrible Valentines Day Gifts

We now interrupt our regular Manny Diaries programming for our annual Valentine's special, in which we showcase a series of unfortunate Valentine's Day gifts that will make your loved one run screaming into the nearest snowbank.

1. Giant Meat Heart

$8.57 for all that meat? I tried to enlarge the image to reveal the text, which no doubt read "Turkey Scrotums and Pork Spleens," but the resolution is poor.

 2. Brief Jerky

Discomfort factor: Quite high.

3. His and Her Tongue Scrapers 

Because there is no way you want to share such an item with your spouse or anyone else. Ick! Tongue fur...tongue fur.  I'm going to keep saying that until you FREAK OUT. Tongue fur.

 4. Chocolate Heads

Before you decide to commission your love's face in chocolate, try to find a photograph of said love taken right before he bites into a big hoagie or right after releasing gas. The results will be so much better! YUM.

 5. Faceless Snuggly Thing

This faceless snuggie will comfort you when you are lonely and sad. Then it will heartlessly strangle you. Best avoided.

 6. Fundies!

No Valentine's Day list would be complete without these. Even more fun when worn by
religious fundamentalists with opposing views!

7. Big Phallic Rose

I cling to my fading manhood much as this small, frightened bear clings to this giant, phallic rose. 

8. Giant Purple Gorilla

Apparently there are lots and lots of giant plushies for sale, and all of them feature besotted adult females clinging to them. There's something somewhat unsavory about this. 

9. Valentine Punkin

Found it in the Halloween remainders bin, put a fresh onesie on the item to repurpose it for Val's Day. Fail. 

10. Disapproving Lovey

"I am deeply disappointed in you and will sit here in judgement until you wither before me" did not fit on the heart.

11. Giant Plush...Oh My God What IS That?

Whoa, is that thing to scale? How many acres of Saran wrap did it take to package it? When I "dream big," will you console me when I awaken? That delivery man (or is he a guard?) sure seems anxious.

12. Unidentifiable Pile of Something

Nothing says "I love you" like a pile of hot buttered yak wool with eyes.

13. Long Dog With Fleshy Tongue

It would have been pretty bad as it was, but they had to add that awful, fleshy tongue
that looks somehow real and vaguely human. I made this photo extra-large so you could see
the detail...the taste buds. I suspect tongue trafficking!

14. Fairy Turdlets

When I saw this I couldn't help but think of the phrase "fairy turdlets." There is something potty-esque about her seat, and the brown matter that's piling up around her ankles is just...well, blergh. Plus she has the vacant expression of the perennially constipated. 

15. Valentine's Day Luxury Kit

With this luxury kit, you can watch yourself making love in the bath via a two-way mirror while you simultaneously hug and make up after the big blowout that happens when you discover your creepy "Peeping Tom" Doppelgangers spying on you and blame it on each other. Wait, what?  

16. Milk Chocolate Heart

A one-pound, anatomically correct chocolate heart. VEINS. It has veins. 

17. Sleeping Bag With Teeth 

This really cute sleeping bag zips your loved one (nearly comatose with fright) into a life-size bear pelt! You can then act out your weird animal molestation fantasy while her tears drizzle down the bear's "gullet." What fun! 

 18. Cupid Sweater

Everything about this Etsy sweater would have been JUST ADORABLE until I enlarged the image and spotted the heart poking out from the nude cupid's rear. This begs the questions: "Does he poo hearts? Or are his buttocks red and heart-shaped, to attract other suitable cupids? Or did he have an unfortunate accident in a kindergarten classroom?" Also, this sweater's 3-D attributes make it unsuitable for most dry cleaners and crowded public gatherings. 

 19. Bobblehead Lovers

Customized bobbleheads simultaneously rape an innocent Valentine's heart,
revealing the dark side of this cruel holiday. 

 20. Winkie Warmer

Hand-knit winkie warmer! With scrotal flaps. I think it's supposed to be an elephant.
I actually think this is pretty awesome. 

 21. One-Armed Replacement Wife

Lonely men need look no further than the one-armed Replacement Wife. Lovingly hand-stitched by grannies in the Ukraine. Comes with rubber glove to avoid those "dishpan hands." Please specify boobie size: Ping-Pong Balls, Bocce Balls, Croquet Balls, Dodgeballs.

 22. Some Scary Thing From Etsy

Handmade with terror. Please do not purchase this for me.

The Terrible Twos And Threes In Perpetuity

But if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need

John Rosemond, the least favorite parenting authority of the ADHD/Pediatric Bipolar apologist crowd, wrote a wickedly excellent newspaper column that appeared in my local paper on May 3 of this year.  I hope he does not mind if I quote from it liberally.

Somebody wrote to him inquiring about a four year old who continued to throw temper tantrums when he could not have or do something he wanted.  The writer thought that four years old seemed a bit old for this type of behavior, which is referred to in the vernacular as the “terrible two’s.”  As in: two years olds.

John Rosemond

Dr. Rosemond noted that until recently, such temper tantrums were rare after a toddler’s third birthday.  Only during the last two generations has that changed.  He defines the “terrible two’s syndrome” quite clearly and concisely: tantrums, belligerent defiance, persistent impulsivity, and separation anxiety.

Sounds a lot like the new bulls**t diagnosis for children that was proposed for the upcoming edition of the psychiatric profession’s diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, called temper dysregulation disorder.  (I think the proposal has been dropped, but it may have just been renamed.  We’ll see).

Rosemond blames the recent prolongation of toddlerhood on parents who keep their kids at the center of their attention “in perpetuity,” and on the parents' enabling behavior.  He defines the latter as “doing for children what they are capable of doing for themselves, however imperfectly.” As a further result of these changes in parenting philosophy, American society is now saddled with “large numbers of perpetually dependent children” who “don’t cope well with the realities of life."

Central to these realities is neglect of what Dr. Rosemond cleverly refers to as the “Mick Jagger Principle:” You can’t always get what you want.

Another very important point that he makes in his column is that the enabling parents are actually victims themselves.  He states that there is tremendous peer pressure on parents to “enter into co-dependent relationships with their kids, and be constantly stressed, anxious, and guilt-ridden as a consequence.” I wrote extensively about the explosion of parental guilt and the peer pressure that reinforces it in my book, How Dysfunctional Families Spur Mental Disorder. But I have also experienced the peer pressure first hand.

When one of my children was in college, she decided to take advantage of a “study abroad” program offered by the college, and spent a semester in Australia. In those days, internet connections were not up to what they are now, and overseas telephone calls were still relatively expensive.  


There was something around called a “phone card.”  This pre-paid card allowed the person who bought it a certain limited number of minutes to spend talking on the phone.  We gave our daughter one card for each month she was to be in Australia.

Of course, she used up the first card in less than two weeks, and was then upset that she could not call us.  She was, no surprise, experiencing a bit of loneliness. 

Well, when we mentioned this turn of events to a couple of our friends, they pounced on us with surprising ferocity.  What was the matter with us?  Why did we not just give her another card?  We could afford it.  Our daughter was lonely, and how could we just let her suffer like that.  We were just terrible!  Neglecting our parental duties! 


Listening to them, you would have thought we had just hired Ivan the Terrible to travel to Australia and impale her.

Gee, loneliness.  How awful!  How unendurable!  A bit shell shocked, we nonetheless stood our ground.  The ability to delay gratification is a very useful skill to develop, and we wanted our daughter to be able to learn to do just that.

I remember when I first went off to college.  There were some days when I was very lonely – even somewhat depressed.

I was barely 17, away from my family for the first time, and 400 miles away from my high school sweetheart as well.  I was also in a very strange and unsettling (but fascinating) new world:  Berkeley, 1966-1967, at the height of the Haight-Ashbury hippie days, before the hippies had been discovered by the media.  


Furthermore, almost all of the college girls I had contact with were older than me. (In those days, not only were cougars unheard of, but most girls would not date a guy so much as one day younger than them.) And girls were outnumbered almost two to one by the boys.  

And in those days, we didn’t call home at all, because long distance calls were expensive.  We actually wrote letters.  Snail mail.  Getting replies took days or longer.

Well, I somehow survived.  And I wouldn’t trade that year for anything.  Watching the Grateful Dead for free in Golden Gate Park before they had recorded their first record.  Watching Jim Morrison invent diving into the crowd from the stage at a Doors concert.  Dancing to the Jefferson Airplane, live, at the Fillmore Auditorium.  And we had to hitchhike across the Bay Bridge to get there because none of us had a car.  My parents would never have let me do that back at home.  Priceless.