Valentine’s Day is my least favorite holiday.

This is probably not a surprise to anyone, it’s practically a cliché. Single female finding the holiday dedicated to romance unappealing. Check.

While the roots of my disdain can be found in all the typical things that you’re thinking about, there are a few other things about the holiday that push it higher on my list of “painful things that must be endured.” It’s currently situated right above commercials with that creepy King, and below dental surgery.

First of all, it’s pink. Okay, there’s red, too. A few minutes after the ball has dropped in Times Square, the holiday aisles at the store slough off their greens and reds, and don the single notes of red in every hue imaginable. This includes “liquid digestive remedy” pink. It’s a crime against the senses. All of those cutesy non-anatomically correct hearts accented with frills? It’s enough to give reformed Scrooge a diabetic coma.

Then there’s the candy. Sure, chocolate is fine, but, those collections of chocolate at the store have been there since just after New Year’s, which means they were mass-produced so long ago that there were only 18 Duggar children. Most of the chocolate sold in this way is tasteless, with a waxy texture. The (one assumes) once creamy and decadent fillings have gone hard and crystallized. Frankly, these “confections” are a crime against the sanctity of chocolate.

In addition to those vile chocolates, there’s those horrifying conversation hearts. It would be kind to say they tasted like medicine. These are chalky blobs of hardened hatred. The obnoxious “adorable” text becomes almost sinister should you decide to put the nasty thing in your mouth. “I luv u” becomes a big fat lie when you have to find a polite way to rid your mouth of the offensive partially dissolved hell-candy.

While I’m not opposed to romance in general, it feels like all the expectations of those rows upon rows of frilly cards, waxy chocolate and stale, crappy candy don’t really foster sincere romantic thoughts. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m too jaded to see it.

In my more cynical moments, I admit that I tend to refer to the holiday only by its initials, aka, “VD*.” Yes, I admit, it’s childish and has an edge of schadenfreude. I’m human, after all.

I like the idea of moving the holiday away from its raging insincerity, and the awkward connection to “couples,” and to a more universal notion of celebrating love, and advocating people take the time to do something thoughtful for another human being on this day. Naturally, I’d like those thoughtful things to be done to me. And I’d like them to involve something other than the things found in the “pink” aisle at the supermarket. You all can do much, much better than that.

*VD – French for “Google it later.”

There are moments when I think everyone in my neighborhood is secretly a serial killer.  To me, this is very good news.

I have learned, thanks to countless mystery writers both in print and on TV, that people living near these crazy killers are rarely the victims. If this is true, I’m hoping that all the homicidal maniacs in the state live within a mile of me.

It is also clear from the proliferation of stories about psycho mass murderers, that, in the worlds of fictional detectives, medical examiners and FBI agents, there are about 1000 times more serial killers than there are in the real one. Some of these detectives are racking up their tenth exceptionally twisted mass murderer, which is about ten more than most real investigators see in an entire career.

While I have no problem with my colleagues in the mystery field making as much money as possible selling stories of murderers, I admit that their efforts to make each one more shocking and horrible than the last makes me wonder about the people living in their neighborhoods.

If one of my neighbors is discovered, and the press, as they inevitably do, comes to interview the residents about the secret monster living down the street I will NOT be the person saying “He was such a quiet man. I had no idea.” Instead, I’ll say “I knew it! Not that I had any proof or saw anything specific, but, he was clearly a killer. I saw him, one winter, as the snow was falling, mowing his lawn. That’s not normal.”

Maybe the “Winter Mower” is too obvious. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Dexter and Ted Bundy, it’s that these charismatic maniacs do a darn good job of blending in with us. Painfully normal and all that. I might need to re-tune my multiple murderer radar, aka killdar. (Yes, I know that needs work. I threw out mur-dar because it sounded like I didn’t know how to actually pronounce “murder,” and sk-dar because I’d have to explain it every time I used the term. SK? Serial Killer? Geesh. Terrible.)

However, despite attempting to re-tune my whatever-dar, the candidates for “friendly neighborhood murderer,” are clear in my head. So clear, in fact, that when I am called upon to walk my sister’s dog, and the dog, “leaves a present” in the yards of these particular neighbors, I spend extra time cleaning it up. I know they are watching me, and I don’t want to give them a reason to expand their list of victims.

If this column ends up being my last, it is because it has inadvertently made me a target of one of my neighbors. You know the one. He mows in the winter. Make sure someone tells the press “I knew it all along.”