Got Poked for Valentine's

I think Valentine’s is like New Year’s Eve...it never lives up to the hype. Once you shrug your shoulder to the romantic holidays, that’s when it really starts to get interesting.

I’ll take you back to Valentine’s 1999. I decided to move to New York. I’m not sure why, maybe to avoid the holiday all together, but Feb. 14th was the day I chose to book my flight. On the way from JFK airport, my cab got in a fender bender.

The furious driver of the other cab got out and walked to my driver's window. He was yelling and gesturing. He boldly went where no other profanity had gone before. He was cursing so much, the sentences didn’t even make sense.

I had six bags of heavy luggage in the trunk and there wasn’t a chance in hell that I was getting out to get another cab. My driver didn’t get out either. Instead he cracked his window about half an inch to listen to the guy. My driver calmly smiled at the man. During pauses, he alternated between two sentences in broken English. One was “Oh, I so sorry” the other was “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

At the time, I was horrified and amused that they just drove off afterwards. Now, as I look back, I’m shocked that they even stopped at all.

Now we go back merely a year to Valentine’s 2005.

My husband, Art, sweetly researched to find the poshist vegetarian restaurant in NYC. Not because I’m still a vegetarian, but because I'm always begging him to go to one. “Let’s eat Vegan” or “There’s this new macrobiotic place I want to try…”

He did the right thing. He planned ahead. He was thoughtful. Picked out a place he thought I would like. He couldn't get reservations until 9 or 10. So beforehand we went to a fund-raiser for a friend's softball team. I vaguely remember the server saying that he was going to 'hook me up'. I realized later that the only thing I could have potentially been hooked up to was a hospital IV.

By the time we got to the restaurant I was so sauced, I could hardly walk to the table, much less carry on a conversation. While we ate hundreds of dollars worth of lettuce, I stared blankly out the window at the McDonald's across the street and salivated over my secret dream of fries. There's a reason that there are no 24 hour vegan restaurants. No one is going out at 2 am looking for a tofu burger.

Ahhh, romantic Valentine’s of yester-year.

So, this year, I said no swanky dinners. Why don’t we get a massage, then order in? He suggested going to the Turkish bath house in the East Village.

I was elated. “I'm going to get the Platza Oak Leaf special treatment!”

I don’t know how this can be classified as a special treatment when it is actually described on their website as the ‘platza specialist will scrub you (actually beat you) with a broom made of fresh oak leaves.’ No, I did not alter any of the text, 'actually beat you' is part of the description. I guess it’s a special treatment, kind of like the silent treatment or water-torture treatment.

Alas, nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like getting spanked by a professional, and I couldn’t wait.

Although Art had the foresight to call and make sure they were open, he neglected to find out how late they were open. They closed early for a private party. So, instead we roamed around the East Village where he treated me to a piercing and dinner.

It started out as one of those casual comments such as “I need to stop at an ATM before dinner” but it was “Let's stop at this piercing salon before we eat…”

Have you ever done something and not remembered why? Like you'll walk past the kitchen and realize you left milk on top of the microwave instead of in the frig and you think, "huh, why'd I do that?" That's what I think when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

He didn’t think I’d really go through with it, and the strange part is neither did I.

When I walked in, the guy was eating Pad Thai. I asked him a few questions, and admitted to the fact that I would most likely chicken out.

He took me in a back room and jabbed a rod through my snout as a confused tears fell from my right eye. Not the left, no, my left eye is tough! My left eye was looking at my right eye yelling ‘Whimp! Get a hold of yourself!’

I wondered if the guy piercing me might not be much different than me. Did he cry like a school girl when he got the skull tattooed on the back of his hand? Did his right eye betray the No Cry Pact with his left during his nose ring or eyebrow piercings? Was he worried that when his parents saw him, they would joke, “boy, it looks like you fell into a tackle box!”

He was done piercing and went back to eating Pad Thai. Yep, put the fork down, stuck his finger in my nose, punctured it, then went back to dinner. The thought was revolting. But then, am I any less disgusting? Sitting in my living room, eating Bhindi Masala off the coffee table while watching an autopsy on CSI?

Although I’m unfortunately not able to report that I got spanked by a specialist on Valentine’s Day, I can say that I got poked by a professional.