...Two Bits

Well folks, we survived yet another Valentine's Day. Many people wonder why we even celebrate the holiday, as it is honestly a rather large pain. Well, I'll spell it out for you: Valentine's Day is an alien conspiracy that exploits humans to make rocket fuel. Has the TwoBits Man flipped his lid? Nope. I'm just setting you up for another exciting installment of (insert dramatic music here) The Hex Files! Today, we will delve into the mysteries of the unknown just like that Fox show with a name that rhymes with ours.

It all started out about eleven years ago with the movie Ghostbusters II. If you've not seen that movie, than you should be aware of two things: one, the original Ghostbusters was much better, and two, you should crawl back into your cave, because the sun must be too much to bear for anyone who actually hasn't seen Ghostbusters II.

Now, that being said, I'll continue. If you recall, one of the major foci of that movie was the red goo that grew with human angst. The movie blamed it on the supernatural, but the TwoBits Man knows better. That movie was actually written by the aliens as a clever ruse to thwart any humans that might figure out that they were being exploited for rocket fuel. After that, no one would ever suspect it.

So, how does Ghostbusters II tie into alien rocket fuel and Valentine's Day? That's a simple enough thing. The goo is clearly rocket fuel. Throughout the movie, it's stated how much energy the goo contains. Anything as powerful that goo could have no use other than interstellar travel. And the goo is so abundant. All it takes is a little aggravation, and voila, it grows!

Fair enough, but why Valentine's? Well, first of all, the goo is red. If that's not a glaring sign of Valentineishness, then I don't know what is. More importantly, Valentine's Day is one of the greatest causes of human irritation that there is. The day divides people into two factions. There are those who the holiday-these account for 97% of human beings-and there are those who don't hate the day, and feel compelled to gloat about not hating the day to those of us who do.

Let's be honest folks. One of the most annoying things in the world is when you're trying to live out February 14th as a normal day, and someone perky has to tell you what how glorious it is.

You need to watch out for these people (if you can call them people). They aren't humans at all, but rather alien pods sent to work on our planet, and given stock options in large alien-owned firms...did you know that Michael Eisner, Bill Gates, and the presidents of all major greeting card companies are from the same star system?

You see, the way the fuel is made is that once a year (which only feels like once every 32.6 seconds to an alien), they lure humans into a world of aggravation with Valentine's Day. All of the annoyed people create enough red goo to fly one Q9 Rocket (the Honda Accord of interstellar travel) three parsecs. They transport their red rocket fuel in heart shaped boxes.

(Note: Nirvana's song, "Heart Shaped Box" was named after the fuel transport devices. It is a little known fact that Cobain wrote that song because he was unhappy that he couldn't return to his home planet; he had run out of rocket fuel, so he existentially wrote, "I've been trapped in your heart shaped box for four weeks." That is deep.)

To recap, aliens have planted enough human look-alikes (pod people) who claim to like Valentine's Day to stir up annoyance in the 97% of humans who hate Valentine's day. The sheer angst creates lots of red goo (rocket fuel) which comes packed in heart-shaped boxes (those yucky candies with goofy sayings on them). The aliens masquerade them as food, when in fact they are exploiting us just so that they can drive from star system to star system in their Q9 Rockets. The pod people, in turn, have been put in positions of power such as CEOs of large software conglomerates and cartoon entertainment companies with stock options and executive washrooms.

So, with this conspiracy of aliens creating an evil holiday and selling greeting cards, you must be wondering where the flower and chocolate industries fit into the picture. That should be obvious. Valentine's chocolate usually comes in a heart-shaped box, so it is just cleverly disguised rocket fuel. Candies not in a heart-shaped box are just wannabe candies created by entrepreneurial Earthlings trying to make a buck off the rocket fuel frenzy. However, it's easy to tell which ones are rocket fuel and which ones aren't...if you compare Godiva (rectangular box) with $3.99 drugstore chocolate (heart-shaped box), I bet you'll agree that the drugstore chocolate even tastes more like rocket fuel than does the Godiva. Same story with flowers; they have nothing to do with Valentine's Day...they're just a shrewd marketing ploy.

It seems to me that there are only two ways for us to stop being exploited on Valentine's. We could all attempt to be happy, thus foiling their attempts to make Ghostbusters-style anger goo, leaving them sans rocket fuel, or we could run out to the stores and buy every heart-shaped box that we can, so as to reduce their supply of fuel. Since the first option will never happen, we'd best be snapping out the gold cards to keep the supply of rocket fuel down.

All in all, I hope that you are a more educated bunch of students. Now you see that Ghostbusters II was nothing more than a propaganda film for making rocket fuel, and that Valentine's Day is just a ruse. So ends another previously-unsolved hex file. Until next week, I am the TwoBits Man, and these are my thoughts.