The Oldest Yet The Latest Thing

at

Love is…

…the stunning  selection of cards and prints at Dublin’s The Jam Art Factory for Valentine’s Day (this Friday!)

To suit any mood: traditional, satirical  or – splutter! – saucy.

Mark at Jam Art Factory, writes:

To celebrate the outstanding selection Valentine’s Day cards and prints avaialable at the Jam Art this February 14, we are offering a heartwarming giveaway.

The winner can pick a print (up to €45) of his/her choice from our love section here.

They can also pick a card to go with the print from our card section here.

Best comment to the following wins the print and card – tell us about your worst Valentine’s Day experience.

Lines MUST close at 2am.

Jam Art Factory

Irish-made Valentine’s Day stuff to broadsheet@broadsheet.ie. No fee.

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22 thoughts on “The Oldest Yet The Latest Thing

  1. Stevie

    In college, on valentines day, trying desperately to impress the small number of eligible ladies in my engineering class, a pigeon did a poo on me…

    …And before I hear people come back with ‘oh…it’s lucky..’, well, I got a card later that day from a ‘secret admirer’ referencing the event, so I thought i had got lucky…

    ..Turns out it was my mates, bl**dy b*st*rds

  2. Spud

    I was 4 months after a tough break-up from someone who I fancied like crazy.
    I was in Tesco doing my shopping for one after work on Valentines eve… picking up a meal for one when my phone rang.
    Low and behold… it was her! I hadn’t heard from her since the day she broke it off!

    Had she thought long and hard about the silliness of her decision?
    Did she think on this day it would be perfect to rekindle our romance?
    My heart almost stopped as I wondered what to say…
    I held the phone nervously and answered.

    ‘Hello?’

    No response from her… but the sound of the speaker rubbing against the insider of her bag.
    A dreaded ‘pocket dial’.

    She never did acknowledge it either.

    In hindsight, we weren’t really suited… but captain hindsight sure takes his bloody time to arrive!

      1. Spud

        It was at least 15 years ago so no interest now!
        Hitched and sprogged up with an amazing wife now thankfully.

  3. Slightly Bemused

    My first Valentine’s Day after my daughter was born, hands down. She was born on 12 February, and was absolutely gorgeous. Of course, her mother was a bit annoyed. She wanted a blue eyed blonde haired baby, which she got. But my little one was the spit of me (thankfully she has grown out of that).
    As is the wont where she was born (US – she could be president there some day), as she was born very early in the morning, we were released to take her home that evening. Everything looked fine.
    But she just kept sleeping, and was hard to wake. She would suckle seemingly well, but just became listless.This only got worse on the 13th, thankfully not a Friday. We had bought a breast pump, and tried feeding her, but the pump was not very good or efffective, althoguh it was a leading brand.
    So back we went to the hospital late on the 13th, less than 24 hours after we left to bring our bundle of joy home. We spent Valentine’s Day sitting by her cotside as a series of tubes went in and came out, and hovered in uncertainty. She perked up over the morning hours, but still, even when suckling under supervision of the breast-feeding instructor nurse (yes, those exist, and are wonderful) she seemed not to get any sustenance.
    Eventually the nurse brought in a machine so my wife could pump her breast milk, and it was given to the little one in a bottle with a specially shaped teat. She simply sucked that down like a stereotypical thirsty Irishman at a bar with his first pint. She very quickly started perking up after that, so once she was fine (sometime on the 15th) we bought one of the good machines, and were allowed take her home.
    We found out later that she has a condition known as phenylketanuria or PKU, which sometimes manifests with an inability to suckle properly. For the first day we were effectively starving our little darling without realising it. A special type of soother is used to correct this, and soon she was suckling properly.
    (On a funny note, the machine did seem to make a ‘pocketa pocketa’ noise, and we had another machine that went beep)
    Just in case you are wondering, PKU is what they do the ‘heel test’ for on children – parents will knowwhat this is. In Ireland it is very common, but less so in the US, so where here we would have known within about 24 hours, it took weeks in the US for the diagnosis.
    So yes, that Valentine’s Day 2001 was a special kind of hell. But as I approach this one, and particularly her birthday, all I can think of is how proud I am of her, and what she has become.

  4. V

    In the Coombe 2004
    Yes the teenager is a Valentines Baby

    I went in knowing something was up, and I was particularly big, and already over so seriously fed up.
    They gave me a “sweep” around midday on the 14th, – girls will know what I mean, so ye can understand that to have that experience down there on Valentines would put you off it all altogether

    It worked tho so I started around 6pm.
    Anyway with it being Valentines night everyone was off doing their own thing so I was footering around, no telly, scalded with heartburn, a barrel of hay of a bump, and in desperate need of diet coke and yogurts while all they would give me was ice cubes all through that night,
    And all I had with me was my Labour bag, so no goodies like comfy pants, or jaffa cakes, or magazines or books, so I wandered around the dark hospital all night with a mobile baby monitor. It was suggested by the Midwives to take a bath but they couldn’t find a plug. All made worse by the fact that I lived less than five minutes walk away, and in some parts of the hospital you could see my (then) front door.

    No wiffy or smartphones either

    By 9 am on the 15th they had to give me a full epidural as she was facing up – again girls know what I mean
    That had to be topped up throughout, so I was completely paralysed from the chest down, which meant catheters and other unpleasant assistance, in the end I ended up with a 100+ temperature that could only be treated with ice cubes and a wall of fans that only served to spread dust.

    Then followed two attempts to extract blood from her head – again girls will know what I mean
    Then an emergency section that had me retching up green bile and blood on route to theatre – and totally helpless as I was completely immobile and numbed.
    And there I met the Anaesthetist that administered that first epidural 12 hours earlier who went bananas that they kept me going all day.

    9lb 10 later, first thing I saw was her foot, and then a smile with a shock of crazy dark red hair as she was taken away for immediate attention, meconium poisoning and inhalation.
    They brought her back to me when I was in recovery, about an hour later, for a feed which she took to straight away, then back up to what the Maternities call Skibbo (special care).

    I have to say from there on, I travelled through the worst night of my life, I was so exhausted, sore, raw, humiliated, ill, and a gasping thirst that felt like I swallowed glass, I actually fainted a few times. Remember I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in almost 48 hours. It was the most vulnerable and exposed I’ve ever felt, and still didn’t feel like I’d just had a baba, and I was so out of it, I couldn’t even grasp what the Neo Nats were telling me.

    All that changed by midday on the 16th – when I got my own room and my baba back. And was finally permitted water and a can of Coke.
    We were actually all in the Coombe for a full 8 days afterwards; my just shy of 10lb beauty was so at risk that they couldn’t risk her losing any weight so they had me feeding her almost every two hours, they gave me one night off but she wouldn’t take to the bottle.

    That stubbornness went on till the following December, when she stopped without warning with a refusal that had a face with it that I still remember to this day; by the end of that same week I was in the grips of the Winter Vomiting Bug, so she must have known then that something was up, but along with weaning her it also helped me shift a good chunk of that baby flab.

    These days now I make a special attempt to do Valentines as a very separate silly to the birthday, while she couldn’t care less
    Sweet sixteen on Saturday and doesn’t even want a cake.
    She’s definitely mine tho

    I know this has gone on a bit, but it wasn’t all grief and luminous stinking green spit up that week I was in the Coombe, I got a special gift delivered to the hospital – a hand made Christening Robe from the Prisoners Wives Coop, and the amount of staff that came by ust to see her hair;
    They all said they’d never seen anything like it – ah jaysus Vinetta, they’re all taking about her hair -picture Rita Hayworth deep oxblood red. Of course she lost it then at three months and was bald till she was four.
    Jaysus if you saw it now
    Still and all, the best thing that ever happened to me

    1. Slightly Bemused

      Sounds like that was hell! I truly do sympathise.

      But delighted if she is now healthy and happy! I can totally relate to your last point!

      1. V

        Ah t’was
        I’m so lucky

        She’s a gift

        Going though that there again was stark tho’
        The only time I’ve actually worded it – would you believe

        And I’d left a few bits out
        More than bits in the scheme of things
        But she’s not a stranger around here
        Checking up on her Mammy like
        Or as she’d say
        Mom

        Or usually Bold Mummy

        I’ll dig out a pic of her 1st day and send it in
        Da’ Baba

  5. jockey

    My initial thoughts when going on the first date with my now wife

    “Never loving her anyways”
    The last thing I could imagine is
    To be with her forever
    Hopefully I get
    To take her home for one night only
    Because I couldn’t bear
    More than that
    I hope she feels
    Insecure
    and
    Unconfident
    Because I am someone who is
    Able to live without this hassle right now
    She’s probably
    Considering me as husband material
    Maybe I’ll hide the fact I hope she’ll be
    Just something for tonight – a one night stand
    With any luck this won’t be
    Something which ends up lasting forever
    That’s what I’m searching for these days –
    Just someone easy to be with
    *Read from the bottom up

  6. DOC

    On a first date a few years ago. Met her on Facebook and she seemed well adjusted.
    We went to the Restaurant and had the meal. I thought it was going well…
    Then it got weird. It started to pour rain outside. She refused to leave the Restaurant and i asked Why?. She said she was a MERMAID and if she got wet her TAIL would come out. I looked at her like she was insane and excused myself. Told her i was going to the Mens room but i walked out the emergency exit instead. Never saw her again

  7. Murtles

    On the dating scene long ago and far away, my romantic valentines dinner ended prematurely when a candle fell onto the tablecloth about 10 minutes before my date arrived. With me in the kitchen cooking up a pasta storm, twas well ablaze by the time I realized. Luckily I had an extinguisher but it was a CO2 so as she walked in the smoke alarms were blaring and a cloud of white powder engulfed the apartment. By the time the flames were out and the dust settled all that was at the door were neighbours. Never heard from her again :(

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