Welcome bar

"Teach me to run with scissors..."

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Sweethearts? - A Special Valentine's Post About Cannibal Cupcakes

As my most ardent followers probably know, I am going to be attending KU this fall.
Rock Chalk!

My ardent followers also happen to know that I am single. ^_^ Ladies...

Yay Valentines! (I know Valentine's Day is over... sheesh! Judgmental much?)

How are these two things related???

They're not. Except that Mom-Lady has decided (for whatever reason) that I'm going to find my "sweetheart" at KU. I suppose she did drop out of business school as soon as she got her MRS.

But she did drop out to raise me and my nine wonderful(ish) siblings... This was quite a daunting task, you would agree, if you knew my siblings and me. (I'm not even the worst of us...)
Anywho, disregarding all of the above, this line of thought got me to thinking about the term "sweetheart."

What is a "sweetheart"? Why do we call people "sweethearts"? What does it mean when one has a "sweetheart"? Are "sweethearts" contagious? Does it have anything to do with blood sugar?
My thesis? Whatever a sweetheart might be, no matter how "nice" one might be, my cold, dead lump of coal is a far preferable thing.

My Heart

Back to the initial question: What exactly IS a sweetheart?

To discover the answer, let us examine the usage of the word. It is obviously a noun. It is something we can possess, e.g. "She is your sweetheart," "You are my sweetheart." It is also something we can be, e.g. "I am your sweetheart," "We are sweethearts." So, in a certain unpleasant sense, it's a bit like slavery. (That is, you can be a person but if you own a person they're a slave, and you can own a chocolate, but you can't be a chocolate... you following me? Something that you can both possess and be is akin to slavery...ish...)
Let's move on...

Now, if we look at the root words, "sweet" and "heart," we can see that we are discussing an internal organ that is pleasant to the senses. (Note that the word "sweet" need not only refer to taste, e.g. "sweet music," "sweet odor," or "sweet feeling.") It is obvious how someone could possess such a thing (though, wondering who tasted, smelled, or felt another's heart conjures up disturbing images of... well... their in your head now. You know what I'm talking about...)
Still, we are left with the question of how one person can BE another person's "sweetheart." How could one actually become a sensually pleasant organ for someone else???

O.o

Aaand... we all just thought of the answer to THAT question...


Let's move on...
As this is supposed to be a family friendly-ish blog, let's get out of the gutter and examine what you and I both know I meant.

I can't be someone else's heart anymore than someone else can be my heart. And, even it was possible, what makes this reverse-anthropomorphized heart sweet? You never hear someone accusing someone else of being their "bitterheart."
That would be fun though... to be bitterhearts with someone. ^_^ Aww... delicious, mutual malevolence. Makes me think of my relationship with Satchel.

But, where were we?
Oh, yes.
Dissecting sweethearts.

Obviously, as shown in the discussion above, we cannot take the term "sweetheart" literally. If we do we end up with all sorts of crazy things like little sugary people replacing our blood pumps. Ludicrous.

So we must assume that the term in question is, in fact, a metaphor of some kind. Could it perhaps be that we are saying this person is what makes our heart sweet? Like they somehow metaphorically take otherwise normal hearts and coat them in sugar and sprinkles like some cannibalistic cupcake?

I'm going to assume that's it.
A "sweetheart" makes another person's otherwise normal heart less of a selfish bit of meanness, and more of a other-centric lovey-dovey "I'mma buy you chocolate and flowers" kind of a blob.

...


And we're back to slavery, it seems.
Still, with this understanding, I have to conclude that Mom-Lady is, in point of fact, very wrong. I will not find my sweetheart at KU. I am incapable of having a sweetheart because I have no heart. No one on this earth can make sweet my cold, dead lump of coal.

Yay, Soulless freaks! :D

Ciao.
~Rafe
P.S.
Go do some evil. ;)