I don’t know what it is this year – maybe it happens every year and I just don’t notice… but it seems this year everyone in hating on the cupid. I’ve heard multiple NPR stories that were really anti-cherubim, and more facebook status slights on the chubby little fella than I care to count.

I know Valentine’s Day is met with plenty of disdain in general, and I get that. It’s supposeldy an “invented” holiday (though that’s pretty much a lie) that really is a win-a-little-or-lose-a-lot situation.

In the end does Valentine’s Day really ever make anyone very happy? Either A) Someone doesn’t live up to your expectations or, worse, B) You have no one to have expectations about, or, worst of all C) someone does somehow manage to live up to your expectations – effing up the holiday for you for the rest of your life because you know it’s never going to happen again.

I get all that.

But why is that Cupid’s fault? He gets so little love anyway. My daughter, almost 6 years old, has Santa, the Easter Bunny and even The Tooth Fairy tattooed into the synaptic flesh of the deepest most primal regions of her young little brain. But this morning she asked my wife and I why that baby had a bow and arrow. And, even after explaining the whole thing to her carefully, she still calls him “the baby with the bow and arrow.”

I guess the whole thing comes down to P.R. And TSYG. That’s, Tangible Shit You Get. Santa offers that in spades, and the Easter Bunny leaves you rolling in it too. Tooth fairy lays out flat cash. Cupid? Love. That’s not tangible. That’s no TSYG.

My daughter understands this. So, she won’t remember his name.

But look, were all adults now, right? We are beyond TSYG. We don’t get the TS any more anyway. Can’t we have a little sympathy for the guy? Isn’t the fact that he drew the lame-o card from the Holiday Super Powers deck a reason to like him more?

He’s like Aqua Man. Aqua Man can’t really do a damn thing but heard fish, and we loved him for that! Awe man, Aqua Man is gonna solve the problem with Salmon. That’ll never work but it’s so cute. GO AQUA MAN, YOU CAN DO IT!

But not cupid. Poor Cupid.

Perhaps he should try a little of his own medicine… shoot us, shoot himself. We would fall in love with him. Except, we all know… he certainly knows… that those damn arrows cause more problems than they have ever solved.

I guess that’s part of the reason too. Damn arrows.

Anyway – I think this MP3 helps to explain it all. In any case, it’s some damn brilliant writing. Listen to it:

Joshua Idehen & Dan Le Sac
Dylan on Cupid

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.6MB)