Several Valentines days ago, my mother in law - MY MOTHER IN LAW! - gave C and I a basket wrapped in celophane as a gift. We thanked her and after she left, we opened it.

We were somewhat shocked to find that it was a basket for a "romantic night", full of dollar-store items including furry handcuffs (I'm not making this up!), a door-knob hanger that said "GET IN HERE!", one of those cardbaord arrrows that you spin when you're playing a board game, only this one landed on various kinky activities to engage in (they were very mild but STILL, that's not the point) and a bottle of sparkling non-alcoholic apple cider.

The funniest part was a small book titled "Romance 101: 101 Creative and Fun Ideas to Keep Your Marriage Alive and Sparkling!"

The ideas in this book are so APPALLINGLY lame and ridiculous, that I thought I would post them here for fun. I still have this book for one reason: because sometimes at parties we pull it out and read some of the ideas out loud and we all have a good laugh. (I'm sure my mother-in-law meant well.)

From now until Valentine's Day, I will post, daily, one of these ideas in case you want to get your love life sizzling (or, more likely, drive someone away).

Here's the first one:

Idea #10
Wrap up a pair of large oven mitts and attach a note: "BEWARE! YOU SHOULD PREPARE TO WEAR THESE TONIGHT!" - YOUR MATE MAY BE TOO HOT TO HANDLE!..." This is sure to bring a chuckle and a smile! Or, wrap up some hot peppers, attaching a note: You're hot stuff too!"

Oven mitts? Hot PEPPERS?
Oh dear dear dear dear dear.