A ValenTIME

The other day I was waiting on a bus stop near my gym to be allowed to go in once the previous class had left. Once upon a time in the olden days, I could hang out in the gym's waiting room and read my book and show the trainers how bad my out-of-class posture is. But alas, due to COVID now they just have to guess.

So instead, I read my book on a bench 20 feet from the entrance and enjoy the 31 degree weather and the marvelous effect it has on my skin. Fun fact: I've spent more on my skin in the last month than I have on food #polarvortex.

Across from the bench where I sit is a watch store called Swatch. Swatch recently put up their advertising campaign for Valentine's Day in their window and this ad really spoke to me:

There is a lot to unpack here.

The woman in the top left is super happy. She lives in a heart shaped world and has a very intimate relationship with her pillow. For her "being single is bliss!"

Funny that she's single but she's still wearing earrings to bed. Girl, if no one is looking in your ears when you sleep take those out. Also, even if someone is watching you sleep take those out. Earrings are not comfortable to sleep in and your ears are fine the way they are for this particular activity.

I guess what she is really saying is as a single person she gets the whole bed to herself and she loves that.

On the bottom left the woman is hugging a giant hamburger. It appears that either her man would not let her eat such fatty foods or that he always took all the pillows and now she sleeps on a hamburger bun. Either way-girl take his credit card and get yourself a good burger. While you're out use your phone to get a nice memory foam hypo allergenic pillow from Amazon. You deserve it.

The woman on the top right is getting a facial with baby blood and tomato slices. She is smiling during the facial because she is on a pillow and her man never lets her use the pillows at home because she's a woman and doesn't deserve them.

In the corner of the ad is her man. He is crying because his woman left him for her pillow fetish. Or because it is Valentine's Day and he didn't bother to wear a tie. Or because in the midst of a global pandemic he uses a handkerchief.

At the very bottom: Time Is What You Make Of It.

Or, as Hannah Montana once said "Life's what you make it so let's make it right."

Swatch is trying to say that in this year you should do what you want to do with your time. Whether that means dumping your man so you can have all the pillows, eating food that resembles a large pillow, or paying people to let your head rest on their pillows-YOU DO YOU. And let that man go cry into his handkerchief in his cold, pillow-less, bachelor's pad. This is your time.

Ok but Swatch, you aren't selling pillows. You sell high end cheap watches. The kind of thing that I probably wouldn't buy for myself but would love if someone I was in a relationship with bought for me. In fact, an almost typical gift for someone to get their significant other. And you are advocating that we dump our significant other for pillows that don't even wear watches!

I'm all for this line of advertising, I think it's a move to the next part of American history where we make men illegal. I'm just not sure that it leads up to the most romantic day of the year as well as Swatch wants it to.

So, this Valentine's Day, buy your man a Swatch and then tell him you're leaving him so you can eat carbs and sleep on your own pillow. Or, buy yourself a Swatch so you can calculate how long you can sleep when there's no man or kids to wake you up (answer: forever and ever and.)

As Hannah Montana said "You decide. Cause life's. What you make iiiiiiiiiiit. Life is what you make it."