Forget the dozen red roses; true romantics should give a dozen eggs this Valentine's Day

Tammy Swift online column sig revised 3-16-21.jpg — Tammy Swift, Forum columnist.

By Tammy Swift

February 04, 2023 at 11:45 AM

For this Valentine’s Day, I see no reason to mess with the typical romantic gestures and treasures.

Forget the usual, hackneyed gifts, like fine Belgian chocolates, long-stemmed roses, diamond earrings, designer perfume or sexy lingerie.

Do you really want to know how to tell your sweetums that you care?

Then be prepared to dig deep down into your wallet and make a REAL investment.

Buy them groceries.

That’s right.

If you truly want to make a splash — and present something that is rare and in-demand and incredibly valuable — buy her food.

Skyrocketing grocery prices have changed everything we thought we once knew about romance. The precious gifts of Valentine’s Day pasts were supposed to be luxurious and sentimental and impractical.

Nowadays, our loved ones just want to be able to make a three-egg omelet without cashing out their 401(k)s.

So forget “He went to Jared.”

She wants to hear “He went to Cashwise.”

Never mind the claim that “Every kiss begins with Kaye.”

Nowadays, “Every kiss begins with K-Cups.” (Have you seen the price of coffee lately?)

"Diamonds may be forever," but a diamond-cut ham reveals that your love can overcome even an 8.7% spike in pork prices.

Don’t simply “Say it with flowers.” Say it with flour, which now costs 20% more than it did last year thanks to the war in the Ukraine, soaring transport costs, increased labor costs and — a phrase I wish I’d trademarked in 2019 — “ supply chain disruptions ."

There’s no need to treat her to classical music, a flight of expensive craft beers and a relaxing massage. She would probably rather indulge in a steak that listens to classical music, drinks expensive beer and gets a massage. So order her some Wagyu beef, stat!

Don’t waste money on creating a path of rose petals which leads to a tub scented with the finest vanilla bath oils and high-end body butters.

She would probably appreciate it more if you created a path of manufacturer’s coupons, which leads to a tub filled with bottles of real vanilla extract and boxes of butter ( up 31% from a year ago ).

Which brings us to an area now known as the Tiffany’s of today’s supermarket: the egg section.

By now, we’ve all experienced the sticker shock — or, more appropriately, chick-er shock — of realizing it wasn’t a goose, but a chicken, which laid the golden egg.

And that’s no yolk.

Thanks to factors ranging from avian flu and increased consumer demand to suspected “foul play” by some of the biggest egg producers , egg prices cost over twice what they were last year.

It has created quite the eggs-istential crisis.

For this brief time in history, your beloved might actually be disappointed if you give her a Faberge egg instead of a real one.

READ MORE COLUMNS FROM TAMMY SWIFT

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Hi, I'm Tammy Swift, a long-time columnist for The Forum. Over the years, I've written about everything from growing up on the farm and life as a single woman to marriage, divorce and the "joys" of menopause. I'm also slightly obsessed with my dog. Check out my latest columns below. Reach me at tswift@forumcomm.com.

Let me illustrate the value and care illustrated by gifting eggs vs. something more traditional, such as a dozen long-stemmed red roses.

Twelve roses will cost anywhere from $30 to $300, depending on where you get them, when you order them, the florist you choose, the quality of the roses, the price of the container, distance of delivery and whether you choose to buy them out of the back of someone's van.

Even so, it’s a fairly easy gift to secure, as long as you don’t try to order them at 10 a.m. on Valentine’s Day and then wonder why your girlfriend wound up with an arrangement of bedraggled, mud-colored chrysanthemums which look suspiciously like you found them in the Dumpster behind a funeral home.

Now acquiring a dozen eggs is something else. The challenge of finding 12 unbroken, free-range, organic eggs for less than a king’s ransom may require staking out the supermarket for the egg truck to arrive, jumping hurdles over Mart Carts to beat little old ladies to the egg aisle, and perhaps performing some impressive karate moves to ensure no one tries to wrest the precious eggs-travagance from your sweaty hands.

You see?

Eggland. When you care enough to shell out the very best.

By Tammy Swift

Tammy has been a storyteller most of her life. Before she learned the alphabet, she told stories by drawing pictures and then dictated the narrative to her ever-patient mother. A graduate of North Dakota State University, she has worked as a Dickinson, N.D., bureau reporter, a Bismarck Tribune feature writer/columnist, a Forum feature reporter, columnist and editor, a writer in NDSU's Publications Services, a marketing/social media specialist, an education associate in public broadcasting and a communications specialist at a nonprofit.

Forget the dozen red roses; true romantics should give a dozen eggs this Valentine's Day

Columnist Tammy Swift says certain foods have become so expensive and in-demand that they outshine the traditional Valentine's Day gifts like roses or jewelry. Bouquet of eggs, anyone?