Love. So beautiful, so precious, so like a flower yet more high maintenance. Sure, you don’t have to give love water or Miracle Grow, you don’t have to prune love, or transfer your love to a bigger pot when the roots of love outgrow the pot it’s in now. Sure, you don’t have to make sure love is getting just enough sunlight so that it doesn’t wilt, but not too much sunlight or it will die too. And you don’t have to put hot pepper on love to discourage the cat – because some love is deadly to cats so you need to train them not to chew on love or dig in love’s soil and poop all over love. Actually, now that I think about it, love is a piece of cake compared to owning a plant.
Either way… I have neither.
No, don’t weep for me. I don’t like plants. But I do like love – but don’t weep for me not having love either, though, because you see… I once had love.
Love for me will always be a beautiful spring – a spring spent at sea. It was with a slight sense of trepidation that I boarded the Pacific Princess with nothing but my suitcase and the desire to find true love on a cruise. My fellow passengers were a balding, good-hearted Captain, a hip black bartender, a wacky doctor and an even crazier steward whose name was “Gopher” – if you can imagine! As I boarded the boat, I met several of my fellow passengers – Howie Mandel, Eric Estrada, Farah Fawcett, Valerie Bertinelli, Sandy Duncan – they were all there. For some the trip would be a wacky misadventure, for others a heartfelt drama – and it would all be neatly wrapped up in about an hour.
It was here that I first found my true… wait. Maybe this is an episode of the Love Boat… no, no, yes, it definitely is an episode of the Love Boat. Ok, sorry, sorry, that was NOT my first love. Sorry for the confusion there.
My ACTUAL first love took place in a POW camp in Nazi Germany. I was a wily American Captain and me and my faithful band of POWs were constantly outwitting Colonel Klink and his dumkopf Sargeant Schultz. She was a German… no, wait, sorry – not it again. That was of course, “Hogan’s Heroes” – a refreshing reminder of just how much fun war and being a prisoner in such a war can be.
OK, I swear I did actually have a first love – believe me, I know what love is like. Yes sir. That feeling that wells up inside you as you look upon someone whose beatuy fills your soul. Not just an outer beauty, but an inner beauty too. It’s a feeling that burns through your veins, that sets your imagination on fire, that puts a spring in your step, that fills you with an irresistable urge to kill, that sparks a burning, murderous rage that will only be satisfied by the complete destruction of all life on Earth – you know the feeling I’m talking about?
Now that I think about it though, by the very logic set forth in my statements, I would still have this feeling unless all life on Earth were destroyed (per, “murderous rage only satisfied by the complete destruction of all life on Earth”) but I definitely do not feel in love right now and you people are all still here… for now.
Could it be that I have never truly been in love? No, but wait, I said I knew the feeling of being in love. Hang on a sec, ok?
Ok, wow, I just read this thing and it makes no sense – I mean, it starts off with one statement that is immediately refuted and then babbles on about 70s television for a while. Then, it obviously goes for the big punchline that I have never been in love but makes statements clearly indicating the contrary – could I know how love feels without actually having loved?
This whole essay is emotional, it’s illogical, it’s nonsensical, it’s pointless, and it seems to be leading absolutely nowhere. And in that way, it’s a lot like love.
Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.
BAM! Did you see that? Totally just pulled that together at the end. Out of nowehere too. You people just can’t even comprehend what you’ve just seen. It should boggle your mind – it really should.