Top Ten Terrible Valentines

"Greetings from Krampus,"
a German Christmas legend applied to Valentine's Day.

Not looking forward to Valentine's Day? Consider a Vinegar Valentine. Costing only a penny to send, Vinegar Valentines were also called 'Penny Dreadfuls.' An invention of the late-nineteenth century, they were typically sent unsigned.

These cards ridiculed the men and women who received them with equal abandon, poking fun at looks, faithfulness, greed, and one's ability to sing. I found hundreds of these cards, but the following ten are the best.

"THE JOHNNIE
The things that fill your mind (?) we know
Candy, Flowers, Clothes, a necktie bow,
One fact these gew-gaws can't efface -
The mind they fill is empty space."

'A BIRD
One day, walking out, you heard
Some fellow say, "Gee! She's a Bird!"
You did not see him when he winked,
And said, "That Bird SHOULD be extinct."'

"Here's a pretty cool reception,
At least you'll say there's no deception,
It says as plain as it can say,
Old fellow you'd best step away."

'VALENTINE GREETINGS
GREED
The card-playing maid is the
"limit,"
Her mind is on the cards
ev'ry minute;
If she loses the prize,
Oh, how deeply she sighs,
"Tis so awful not to be
in it!"'

"TO A HOMELY LADY
I'd give all I have in the world,
To bask in the light of thine eyes;
But a lover more favored than I,
Has taught thee my suit to deny.
Alas! not a shadow of hope!
Then I must such beauty resign!
Oh! how I do envy the man
Who calls you his dear Valentine."

"DON'T
SIT UP THE NIGHTS
ADMIRING YOURSELF
THE BEST THAT
CAN BE SAID OF YOU
IS THAT YOU PASS IN A
CROWD."

"The Suffragette Valentine
Your vote from me you will not get.
I don't want a preaching suffragette."

"YOU ARE A NERVE-DESTROYER
WHEN a pig's getting slaughtered, the noise that it makes
Is sweeter by far than your trills and your shakes;
And the howling of cats in the backyard at night,
Compared with your singing's a dream of delight.
Your equals and your bawls are such torture to hear.
A man almost wishes he had not an ear:
If someone would choke you, and thus end their pain.
Hearty thanks from your poor distressed neighbors he'd gain."

"MISER
You slave and save and starve yourself
And I can't see the reason why
You've hoarded all those piles of money -
You can't take it with you when you die -"

"Oh! you ugly little thing
The sight of you's disinteresting
You should look worse if it were not
For your gaudy dressing
Just fancy calling you a page
You should be in an iron cage"

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