Buzz Fleischman - Columnist Page Valentine's Day is Tuesday February 14th so I hope you've ordered your flowers and expensive chocolates. Make your reservations and you might as well slick down your hair, too, because this is the day to make points.

All through recorded history, since the first cave man brought a bunch of wildflowers to his mate and she ate them, men have been playing catch-up. If it weren't for Valentine's Day we'd have to invent a day when it was all right for a man to browse the mushy card section and get teary about how it has turned into an unabashed merchandising bacchanalia.

The amount of lace on the card says it all. Here's a $10 card, I Love You. Here's a $15 card, I Really Love You! Here's a $20 card, I should have bought the wine. You can't put a price on Love but tell that to someone whose credit card hasn't come up for air in years.

Have we been overtaken by people who want to put words of Love in our mouths while they take cash out of our pocket? Maybe.

It's the little things, like making your mate a special cup of coffee while she ponders all the expensive things you could have done. Nothing says "I Love You" like a double steamed milk white chocolate mocha with caramel machiatto poured over an ice float shaped like a heart with a string of cherries for the aorta.

Yes, take your love out, anywhere as long as it's away from the house, which means that you care enough to get in the car and drive her somewhere.

The holiday falls on a Tuesday this year so the weekday early bird dinner specials will be a temptation for the frugal gourmet. But a dining experience at Chez Escargot will make your head spin, especially when you get the bill!

The timing of Valentine's Day in the middle of February couldn't have been better.

Almost everyone who has made a New Year resolution to lose weight and exercise has either forgotten those vows or has lost just enough to splurge on candy and other sweets.

Speaking of sweets, let's talk about chocolate, which is synonymous with how sweet you really are. The Equation seems to be that more expensive chocolate means more love, so that a Hershey's Kiss is to the finest chocolate what a Kia Rio is to a Bugatti Veyron.

Let's see how deep is your love, starting with a high end Godiva 'G' collection consisting of Palet d'Or, Tasmanian Honey and Mexican Hot Chocolate. Each made of premium cocoa beans. Not bad. $120 a pound.

Let's move on to a true declaration of your glittering love with a Delafee brand chocolate made from fine cocoa beans and flakes of edible 24-karat gold applied by hand to each praline at a cost of about $500 per pound.

Now comes undying, everlasting love, affection -- and bankruptcy. In 1999 a Danish chocolate maker, Fritz Knipschildt founded Knipschildt Chocolatier. He produces, on order only, a dark chocolate truffle with a French black truffle inside. Made of 70 percent Valrhona cacao, it is blended into a creamy ganache with truffle oil. It is then hand rolled and dusted with cocoa powder. One can visualize them wearing white tuxedos in the kitchen. Each truffle cost about $250 with a price per pound of -- are you sitting down -- $2600!! We're not talking Betty White with a Snickers Bar!

Aren't you glad it comes around only once a year?

Whatever you do, do it with Love in your heart and every day will be special!

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