Constable: Hard to build Valentine for guys
Tuning in to sports talk radio, the most manly thing a commuter can do, a listener is besieged with the "Countdown to Valentine's Day" reminders. The clock is ticking, deadlines are approaching and the man needs to order flowers, buy chocolates, make reservations, reserve chocolate-dipped fruit and purchase jewelry. Or, in his panic, he can throw in the towel on creativity and pay overnight delivery for a teddy bear no woman ever has requested or a pair of pajamas that blends the cold-weather practicality of wearing slippers, gloves and a hoodie to bed with the comfort of having it all held onto her body by one giant zipper.
The pajama website features a clock counting down the seconds to Valentine's Day. An electronic billboard for Luigi Italian Bistro in Palatine warns only "guys" of the days left before Valentine's Day. A stroll through Woodfield Mall reveals countless displays with hearts and suggestions that a man should buy his wife or girlfriend (or maybe both) lingerie, fragrances, high-heeled shoes, diamonds, bracelets or Frango mints.
And there, tucked away in the men's department of one of the large department stores is a single shelving unit with a small sign reading "Gifts For Men." Those gifts include cocktail glasses for drinking whiskey, copper mugs for drinking Moscow mules made with vodka and plastic rocks filled with a liquid that can be frozen and dropped into whatever alcoholic concoction a man latches onto when he realizes that the special woman in his life thinks he has a drinking problem. If he reaches for a sobering cup of coffee, he can sip it out of a Valentine's Day mug given to him by his wife, which reads, "You are the luckiest guy in the world. I would love to be married to me."
But you don't hear men whining that Valentine's Day is sexist. The folks at Berland's House of Tools, the working man's manly house of worship near Palatine, are fine with that double standard.
"Valentine's is not a good holiday for men. It's flowers and candy and jewelry for women," explains Sue Hoppe, the chief operations officer for Berland's, which also has stores in Lombard and Joliet. The customers milling about the large displays of power tools, drill bits, saw blades and such are all male and all-male.
"We do have women come in sometimes," Hoppe says. "A lot of times they come in with a picture on their phone of what he wants."
That generally works about as well as sending a husband to Discount Shoe Warehouse with a magazine photo of a model wearing the pair of stiletto heels his wife wants.
"We try to push them into gift cards," Hoppe says.
"In the spring, a man's heart turns to tools," says Dwight "Tool Man" Sherman, who took over the tool store from his father, who bought Berland's in 1969. With spring construction season looming, a February holiday would be the perfect time to buy a tool for some special guy.
"But Valentine's Day is a hard one for the girls," Sherman says. "It's so personal. How do you choose? Like diamonds are the girl's best friend, tools are the guy's fancy. That means more to them than chocolates."
While consumers are expected to spend $18.9 million on this Valentine's Day, polls suggest that the longer a couple has been together, the less they spend on the holiday. Sherman, who will celebrate his 42nd wedding anniversary in March, says he and his wife, Janet, probably will have a nice dinner on the romantic holiday. Hoppe, who has been married to her husband, Bill, for 34 years, says the only gift she'll probably give on Valentine's will go to her 9-year-old granddaughter Ellison.
"I'm baby-sitting her on Valentine's Day so her parents can go out," says Hoppe, who has 19 grandkids and three great-grandchildren.
Blending manly tools with a romantic holiday that caters to women is tricky. But with "Fifty Shades of Grey" setting pre-release box-office records, Berland's House of Tools might want to organize a Valentine's Day sale for couples who want to update their "playroom" hardware to include rope, cable ties and clamps.