Here are two Valentine’s Day-related incidents which should prove instructional.

1. On Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1977, I presented my wife with a 2 lb. box of Whitman’s chocolates which I’d purchased at a local drug store. She appreciated the gift so much that the very next day, February 15, 1977, she presented me with an 8 lb. 9 oz. baby boy. I may be wrong here, but according to my calculations, if I’d given her a 5 lb. box of chocolates, our son would have weighed well over 21 lbs. at birth, and would be known today as Haystack Calhoun Sanders.

2. On Feb. 5, 2007, with Valentine’s Day looming on the horizon, Lt. Cmdr. Lisa Nowak, U.S. astronaut and space shuttle veteran, drove over 900 miles from Houston, Texas to Orlando, Florida. Her mission, to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, whom she believed was involved romantically with Lt. Cmdr. Nowak’s intended Valentine, fellow astronaut William Oefelin. Nowak, like any good astronaut on a pre-Valentine’s Day mission, was armed with all kinds of high-tech space equipment–a pocket knife, a BB gun, pepper spray, and a metal mallet. She was wearing a regulation astronaut space diaper and a Michael Myers mask, so as to not draw attention to herself. She brought no Whitman’s chocolates with her. After her release from jail, Lt. Cmdr. Nowak went directly to the Betty Ford Center for rehabilitation.

So what is the connection between these two true stories?

I’ve given the matter a lot of thought, and there is no connection at all. Except that both involve romance, and that is what Valentine’s Day is all about. Here are some lessons you men can learn from the first incident:

1. You should always approach Whitman’s Samplers with care. You can never tell how a woman will react. She might have a baby.

2. And if you choose candy, diet candy is never a good idea. Also, no Granola bars.

3. Jewelry makes a fine Valentine’s Day gift, but it has no nutritional value.

4. We men find women in sexy lingerie attractive. Sometimes we may be tempted to give our wife some of that sexy Victoria’s Secret lingerie for Valentine’s Day. This is not a good idea. Not when she is 9 months pregnant, and not even afterward. Most married women do not care for Victoria’s Secret lingerie, and they don’t care for the idea of their husbands perusing the catalog in search of those models wearing the products, either. Married women are unreasonable that way.

5. Nor do married women care to see their husbands wearing sexy underwear. Not on Valentine’s Day, not even on Halloween. A woman finds a man who can wash clothes and change a diaper more attractive then a man who can dance around the house in black socks and a thong. This is nature’s way of ensuring that married men with children will hardly ever get sex.

6. If your idea of a Valentine’s Day gift is dinner and a movie, and if that dinner consists of a couple of Big Macs, and the movie is a Girls Gone Wild video, you can look forward to sleeping on the couch. By yourself. Without access to the remote.

7. When it comes to Valentine’s Day, flowers are good; cabbage, carrots, and other fresh produce is not.

8. Likewise with home appliances, like toasters or three-speed electric drills.

9. And even when she specifies what she wants, you can’t always take what your wife says literally. Last year my wife expressed a desire for bath products on Valentine’s Day, so I got her a very attractive floating rubber froggie and a nice Miss Goo Gerry the Germ hand mitt, to make bathing both inviting and educational. I put a lot of time and effort into those gifts, but her response was disappointing. I’d advise against bath products.
 

As to the Lust in Space story:
 

1. A love triangle can be dangerous, but a love rhombus almost always produces more collateral damage. And speaking of collateral damage, a love octagon in Shreveport, Louisiana sent all eight of the people involved, plus six more cousins who were merely spectators, to a local hospital during last year’s Mardi Gras celebration.

2. Researchers at the University of Alabama’s True Romance and Bladder Control Institute recommend Depends. And not just for those long shuttle trips, either. As any lovelorn astronaut can tell you, there’s nothing more unromantic than having that intimate, candlelight dinner interrupted by one or both parties experiencing embarrassing plumbing problems.

3. Oddly enough, Florida State Troopers say they stop an average of 187.6 non-astronaut drivers a week wearing diapers. By which I mean the drivers are wearing diapers, not the troopers. Many of them, when stopped, are amazed to learn that they are in Florida. Most are in search of a Cracker Barrel.

4. We think that astronauts would be far more successful in discouraging their competition if they were to use the NASA designed robotic Jaws of Discouragement, programmed to crack open car windows and extract their romantic rivals. We are sure that both Dr. Phil and his colleagues at Houston Mission Control would agree.