In the 1700s, rural Englishwomen would pin five bay leaves to their pillows—four on the corners, one in the middle—on the evening before Valentine’s Day. By doing so, it was said, they would see their future husbands in their dreams. A variation of this tradition called for women to sprinkle bay leaves with rosewater and lay them across their pillows.

Link -via Nag on the Lake

Bottoms Up, Rings Down!

Putting a ring inside your girl friend’s Wendy’s Frosty may seem romantic, but when you and your friends encourage her to chug it, you might just ruin the surprise. At least, that’s what happened to Reed Harris, when his girlfriend, Kaitlin Whipple, opened up her gullet and downed the contents on her Frosty, only to see her cheering crowd suddenly go blank and look at each other with worry. “I felt nothing at all,” she told Lauer. “I was racing my friends, so there was no way I was going to lose that competition.”

That’s right, Kaitlin drank her engagement ring and had to go to the hospital, where the ring was found via X-ray. Reed proposed to Kaitlin with the X-ray image of the ring in place of the actual jewelry. A few days later, with the help of plenty of fiber, the couple recovered the ring –and promptly had it cleaned!

Source: MSNBC Image via Kaitlin’s Website.

Try Chewing Next Time

Lest you think that Kaitlin is the only woman to have swallowed her diamond ring during an engagement proposal gone wrong, here’s a proposal story that “takes the cake.” Mr. Chen, a resident of China, thought it would be really romantic to bake his engagement ring into a cake to surprise his girlfriend. Chen said he was inspired by romantic comedies he’s seen, which always tends to be a bad start.

His girlfriend, Wen, was eating the cake when he bent down on his knee to propose, and then she suddenly passed out. “I realized I had just swallowed the ring with a full mouth of cake,” she said.

Chen called the police who told him to visit the hospital, where they were able to use a catheter to remove the ring. When Wen woke up, she promptly said yes.

Source: Ananova Image via Chotda [Flickr] (not the actual cake in the story)

Leaves Your Emotions Soaring

Admittedly, giving your girlfriend a balloon and then having a ring fall out when you pop it is really romantic, but I’m sure we can all see the infinite number of things that could go wrong through this method of “popping the question.” Lefkos Hajji didn’t consider all those potential problems when he had a florist hide a ring worth over $1,000 inside a balloon.

Thought the florist warned him to hold on tight to the balloon, Lefkos lost the balloon moments after leaving the shop when a gust of wind tore it from his hands. He claims he chased the balloon in his car for two days before he gave up hope. “I just watched as it went further and further into the air. I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me.”

While Lefkos may get a lot of points on the romantic scale, his inability to see the obvious dangers in this plan indicate that he may be a little short on the intelligence side. Evidence that his IQ is lower than the average bear is even stronger when you consider that the girl he is so in love with, presumably for her kindness and lovingness, refuses to speak with him until he gets her a new one. Personally, I would laugh and feel bad if my boyfriend did something like this. Of course, I think if he were to come up with a plan like this, he’d have an easy work around to prevent the danger from ever happening. –For example, this all could have been avoided if Lefkos put a note that said “will you marry me” in the balloon and then handed the girl the ring when she read the note. It’s just as sweet, not as dangerous.

Source: The Sun UK Image via Kaptain Kobold [Flickr] (not the balloon in the story)

Rejection is Better In Private

I’ve always thought that if you were going to ask a girl to marry you in front of a massive audience, you’d better know she’s going to say yes. In this situation, even if the girl says yes, you still can’t be sure she actually meant it when she had that much pressure on her to agree. Of course, not every girl will say yes no matter how much she feels pressure, as seen in the video above, where a woman rejects her prospective husband in front of a full arena and tv cameras.

Video link

The Rejection Should Not Be Televised

Like women swallowing wedding rings, rejecting potential spouses in public is not entirely uncommon. This woman’s face tells the answer before he even asks. This could have been a really romantic moment of television, but when the girl’s obviously not into it, the result is just plain awkward…not to mention painful. This couldn’t have been good for the show’s ratings.

Video link

Keep Your Feet On The Ground

Sometimes all it takes for a proposal to go wrong is a little too much romance. When one man proposed on top of a steep hiking trail, the girl was so excited that she managed to fall off the cliffs after excitedly saying yes. She dropped ten feet off a steep rockface (like the one seen above) and went unconscious after hitting the ground. Luckily, park police were able to fly her out of the area with a helicopter and none of her injuries were life-threatening.

Source: NY Daily News Image via Sharron McClellan [Flickr]

You Have The Right To Be An Idiot

It’s generally not a great idea to use government resources to scare the hell out of your girlfriend just so you can pop the question, but Baltimore State Delegate Jon S. Cardin is far too much of a risk-taker to heed such common sense. As such, he thought it would be a great idea to borrow a friend’s yacht and then convince local, on-duty police to raid the vessel with both boats and a helicopter, all in a strange, elaborate method of proposing to his girlfriend. Officers searched the boat and Megan Homer thought she was about to be handcuffed when Jon bent down on one knee and asked for her hand.

Unfortunately for Mr. Cardin, officials for the Baltimore Police Department asked for his explanation. The officials were furious to hear about such an abuse of police resources when the city was already strapped for resources and police were in short supply even at dangerous crime scenes. Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, stated “The Police Department is not in the business of renting out the helicopter and the boats for bachelor parties and birthdays. We’re in the business of upholding public safety in Baltimore.”

When Cardin actually addressed the public about the matter, he claimed the police performed a “routine safety check,” and left out the part about the helicopter. At least he promised to reimburse the city for any expenses related to the proposal.

Source: Baltimore Sun Image via Chris Hau [Flickr]

Don’t Kiss Someone To Deaf

Marriage proposals are not the only romantic gestures that go wrong of course. Even something as simple as a kiss can go very, very wrong in some situations. Take for example the Chinese woman who became partially deaf for two months after receiving a mind-numbingly passionate kiss from her lover. Somehow the kiss created pressure build up in her head so severe that her right ear drum blew out, leaving it completely deaf.

“While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution,” said the Chinese newspaper that originally covered the story.

Source: Reuters Image via Life Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt

The Kiss Heard Round The World

Speaking of kisses that really make an impact, it’s important to know the cultural implications of public displays of affection before you kiss someone publicly on stage. Richard Gere learned this the hard way when he managed to piss off practically everyone in India by kissing the Celebrity Big Brother winner, Shilpa Shetty, on stage during an Aids awareness rally in New Dehli. In India, it is considered obscene to publicly display any form of affection and Gere’s kissing Shetty’s hands and face were considered vulgar to those watching. Some people were so incensed by his actions that they actually burned effigies of him on the street, while protesters in other areas shouted “death to Shilpa Shetty.”

Source: BBC

Only Some Things Are Forever

Getting a life-sized portrait of your wife and children tattooed on your back might not be on most people’s to do list, but it most certainly displays a life-long commitment to your spouse. Unfortunately for Alan Jenkins, his wife was most certainly not willing to return the favor. While he was going through the 20-hour long, $1500 process of a full-back tattoo, she was busy cheating with a man who was 10-years-her-junior that she met at work. Of course, Alan didn’t find out until after the tattoo was complete, “I had it because I thought we loved each other – I feel very betrayed.” Strangely, he’s decided to not have her image removed.

His wife, Lisa, tried to defend herself by saying she never meant to fall in love with fitness instructor Kaspars Gavars and that she never wanted Alan to get the tattoo in the first place. Still, waiting for your husband to complete his tattoo before you tell him about your affair is pretty heinous.

This incident reminds me of the scene in “Born In East L.A.” where Cheech is told to remove the tattoo of a woman on someone’s back. Since he obviously can’t remove it, he draws devil horns and a mustache on the face. Maybe Alan needs to see this movie for some ideas.

Source: Daily Mail UK

Passengers Only Beyond This Point

In olden times, it was ok to walk your sweetie all the way down the tarmac just to spend the most possible time together before kissing each other goodbye, but in the days of the TSA, it’s not so simple. Personally, I thought this was pretty common knowledge, but I guess I was wrong because apparently, because one man actually shut down a whole airport for five hours just to kiss his girlfriend goodbye.

The couple remains unidentified, but I’m sure more than a few people at the airport wish they knew who was responsible for making every single passenger go through security a second time, delaying flights for hours. The TSA agent that left his post, letting the man slip into the secure area undetected, was suspended on administrative leave.

Source: Reuters Image

Only Babies Can Go Naked and Shoot People With Arrows

One of the most frequent reasons men seem to get in trouble for romantic gestures is in a strange attempt to impress a girl. While outrageous methods occasionally catch a woman’s eye, many stupid ideas not only fall flat, but also result in arrests and mayhem.

James Miller is a perfect example. This young Romeo had a bit too much to drink one night and decided that relying on cupid wasn’t good enough to take his relationship to the next level –instead, he decided, he needed to be cupid. So he took the next logical step and jumped onto the field of a soccer game dressed in only his boxers, shooting roses from an arrow at the crowd of entertained onlookers.

Naturally, he was arrested, fined and banned from any further soccer games for the next three years. Unfortunately for Miller though, his girlfriend, Jade Thompson, had quite the opposite reaction to his stunt and dumped him shortly after the incident. To make matters worse, since he’s in the military, his superior officers warned that he may even be court-martialed for the stunt.

“That sort of behavior always seems to work some romantic magic in the movies. Now I have no girlfriend and no job,” he explained outside of a courtroom hearing.

Source: Telegraph UK

Crime Doesn’t Pay or Get You Girls

What could be worse than streaking along a soccer field to impress a girl? Drunkenly stealing a plane and then crashing it into a soybean field. Michael Santos had already lost his driver’s license permanently, but that didn’t deter his desire to impress his girlfriend by showing her that he could fly a plane.

So, he drove her to the airport while drunk, broke into a plane and then managed to catch the wing on fire before he even reached the end of the taxiway. He then missed a curve in the runway veered into a soybean field and cut up a bunch of the plants with the plane’s propeller. Police estimate the damage to be around $160,000.

No word yet on whether his girlfriend actually stuck by him after this moronic stunt, but the fact that she got into the plane with her drunken boyfriend is a good indicator that she seems to lack common sense enough to dump him for this.

Source: MSNBC Image via Cranky Guy Media [Flickr] (not the actual plane involved)

Don’t Flash Cash You Don’t Have

The spirit of capitalism is alive and well in China, or at least when it comes to trying to impress women. A man in the Heilongjiang province was arrested last year after trying to impress his girlfriend by depositing a 250 million yuan ($36.5 million) check into his bank account. The only problem, the check was a fake and he bought it only so he could look cool by depositing it in front of her.

I’m sure you can guess what happened afterward; bank clerks knew the check was fake and called the police and the man was arrested. He immediately confessed that he bought the fake check for the sake of impressing his lover.

The moral here is it’s better to be poor and honest than truthful while under arrest.

Source: China Daily

What about you readers? Have any love stories from hell, or know someone else that does? Do share.

Check out this little snuggling (or is it snorgling?) action and just before Valentines Day on the beaches of South Georgia! OK, I’m torn between condemning such close interaction with a wild animal by humans, however I am stuck saying, “D’awwwwwww,” throughout the whole video. I can’t help but think that the behaviour of the seal is between being very curious and/or lonely.

Whatever the facts are – I recall how vocal some of you folks have been about wild animal and humans interacting with Neatorama’s article on Sonya the Slow Loris – humans should never be this close to a wild animal no matter how adorable it looks or acts. After all seals are also predators and have attacked humans before…but they have also been the ones to initiate contact with humans.

**UPDATE – I see that the video has indeed been taken down which is a shame, really. I would like to thank “l’elk!” for the link which you can find in the comments for a Google Cache. Backup link here – Link

**UPDATE 2: OK, I apologize folks for the video disappearing on all of you but it would seem that all remnants of the video are gone including the Google Cache link. It was fun while it lasted.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Yes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World may have been created because Nebuchadnezzar II wanted to impress his wife. While some historians think the gardens only ever existed as a poetic creation on paper, others contend that the Chaldean King felt bad for his wife, Amytis of Media, because she missed her Persian homeland so much.  As any doting husband would do, Nebuchadnezzar decided to embark upon a massive landscaping project using plants and trees that would remind her of Persia’s forested mountains.  OK, he wasn’t exactly out there with a wheelbarrow himself, but what he had created sounds like it was pretty spectacular. Greek Historian Diodorus described it like this:

“The Garden was 100 feet (30 m) long by 100 ft wide and built up in tiers so that it resembled a theatre. Vaults had been constructed under the ascending terraces which carried the entire weight of the planted garden; the uppermost vault, which was seventy-five feet high, was the highest part of the garden, which, at this point, was on the same level as the city walls. The roofs of the vaults which supported the garden were constructed of stone beams some sixteen feet long, and over these were laid first a layer of reeds set in thick tar, then two courses of baked brick bonded by cement, and finally a covering of lead to prevent the moisture in the soil penetrating the roof. On top of this roof enough topsoil was heaped to allow the biggest trees to take root. The earth was leveled off and thickly planted with every kind of tree. And since the galleries projected one beyond the other, where they were sunlit, they contained conduits for the water which was raised by pumps in great abundance from the river, though no one outside could see it being done.”

Not bad, right? His romantic gesture must have worked, because Amytis stuck around.

The Taj Mahal

 
You might not want to attempt this Valentine if your loved one is still living, lest they think you’re after their insurance policy. But Shah Jahan had good reason to create a massive tomb for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal – she had just died while giving birth to their 14th child. Shah Jahan was devastated. He immediately went into seclusion and was rumored to be considering abdicating the throne and turning to a solitary life as a religious recluse. Reports say that his hair went from having a few strands of grey hair to a full head of it, and that he wept so much his vision deteriorated. His family put up with it for a while, but eventually became frustrated with his constant grieving. “If he continued to abandon himself to his mourning, Mumtaz might think of giving up the joys of Paradise to come back to earth, this place of misery,” one of his honorary uncles wrote, “He should also consider the children she had left to his care.”
Ouch. Well, sometimes when you’re upset, you just need to throw your energies into something else – so that’s what Jahan did. Six months after she died, the foundation was laid for what would end up being one of the greatest architectural and artistic accomplishments in history. It took 22 years, about 20,000 workers and 32 million rupees or so to complete. Poet Sir Edwin Arnold referred to the Taj Mahal as, “Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.”

Both Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal have taken up final residence in the Taj Mahal.
Photo from PlasmaPool.

The British Throne

OK, Prince Edward VIII didn’t give his wife the throne, he gave it up for her. Prince Edward was in a relationship with a married American woman named Wallis Simpson when his father, King George V, suddenly passed away. In fact, Edward watched the public announcement of his father’s death (and, subsequently, Edward’s reign) from a window, accompanied by the married Simpson. Edward served as King for less than a year, with advisors repeatedly telling him that the public would never accept Wallis Simpson as queen for many reasons, including her two divorces and the fact that she was born in the United States. Edward suggested a morganatic marriage, meaning that although he would remain King, there was no way Wallis could ever become Queen. This suggestion was immediately shot down.

There was so much pressure on the couple that Simpson was just about ready to make a public announcement saying that she was ready and willing to give up the King, but Edward refused to allow it. On December 10, 1936, Edward signed the Instrument of Abdication, stating that he was willingly giving up all of his kingly duties. He issued a statement to the people of England, saying “”I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility, and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.”

Simpson hadn’t divorced her husband yet and began proceedings immediately. The couple had to stay away from each other until the divorce was final; they finally reunited in May of 1937 and married a month later on June 3, 1937 – which would have been King George’s 72nd birthday.

Photo from the BBC.

James Stowe has a neat collection of Star Wars cards for Valentine’s Day, which is this Sunday.  There are six cards, one for each episode.

Link (Previously on Neatorama: A Very Wrong Star Wars Valentine)

Here’s a kitschy gift idea for Valentine’s Day: a frog in a cup that magically transforms into a prince after you add a little bit of water!

Link

Or, if you want to give the guy in your life a gift he’ll never forget, give ‘em this: the Arrogant Bastard and Double Bastard beer bottle tumblers.

Joel Watson of Hijinks Ensue made this printable Valentine’s Day card that is oh-so-wrong if you think about it. If you don’t get this, then it’s obvious that you’ve never watched Star Wars before …

Link

Link via CakeWrecks

Just in time for Valentine’s Day – traffic officials in Chengdu, China, came up with this idea of making crossing a road more romantic:

A spokesman said the local traffic bureau wanted to give the crossing a romantic atmosphere because it was close to the Hejiang Pavilion, a popular dating venue for young couples.

"We want to make everybody who walks on it feel warmth and love from others," said the spokesman, adding that it was believed to be the first crossing of its kind in the whole country.

"We have two wishes – one, that all who walk on it experience long-lasting love and, two, that they obey traffic rules and cross safely."

Link

Artist Liz McGrath is selling personalized painted butcher knives just in time for Valentine’s Day. There are two designs, the one shown and one with a cute little mouse on the blade. Each cleaver comes with its own box. They’re only $25 and the perfect way to tell that special someone “till death do us part.”

Link Via BoingBoing

Any fan of J. Geils Band, will certainly know "Love Stinks." Never before was this quite so perfectly illustrated before this wonderful message was delivered with fake poop. It may actually not stink like the real thing, but I’m sure your date will understand the underlying hate in your gift of "I love you" poop.

Link

Link via Slashfood

According to the Wikipedia, “There are many theories about the origins of White Day. According to one, the holiday began in 1965 when a marshmallow maker started marketing to men on the grounds that they should pay back the women who gave them chocolate and other gifts with marshmallows.

“Soon thereafter, confectionery companies began to realize that they could capitalize on such a tradition as well, and began marketing white chocolate. Now, men give both white and non-white chocolate, as well as other edible and non-edible gifts, such as jewelry or objects of sentimental value, or white clothing like lingerie, to women from whom they received chocolate on Valentine’s Day one month earlier.”

Not to be out done, single folks have created their own holiday, too, called Black Day. Celebrated on April 14, those that didn’t receive gifts for Valentine’s Day or White Day will get together and eat noodles with black bean or white sauce to represent their “singledom.”

White (and Black) Day is actually becoming more widespread, and is celebrated in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and various European countries.

What do you think? Do you think White Day will ever catch on in America? Post your thoughts in the comments!

Links to White Day and Black Day

This Valentine’s Day, don’t just buy a box of chocolate for your beloved geek, buy him or her this: the Choclate Mii.

This box of candy has it all. In fact, the box is even part of the gift. Crafted to look like a miniature Wii with the message "Wii belong together, you and Mii" written on the top, the box opens to reveal two chocolate Miis with little red-hot hearts on their shirts. You can choose to have the traditional boy and girl grouping, or any combination of the two, so give the gift to a loved one or share with a friend.

Link – Thanks Sabrina!