Even if I had wanted to, I couldn't have avoided overhearing the conversation.

 And I certainly didn't want to do that.

 In fact, I spent an additional 10 minutes climbing the stairway to Purgatory, for the express purpose of continuing to overhear the conversation, the subject of which was how to select a suitable Valentine's Day gift, in particular, flowers.

 "What are you getting your wife for Valentine's Day?" asked one man, referred to hereafter as Gallant, said to the other, referred to hereafter as Goofus.

 "A card," was his reply.

 "No flowers?" said Gallant, incredulously.

 "No," Goofus said matter-of-factly.

 "Oh, well, you should," Gallant said. "I always buy my wife flowers and take her to dinner. And you don't just get any flowers. It's important that you buy the right kind."

 I couldn't believe it. I mean, I had heard that there were men like that, but I thought they were just characters on a daytime drama. But here was one, right before my very eyes — and slightly left of my ears.

 Gallant continued to tell Goofus how buying the right flowers didn't require any special knowlege on his part. He just told the florist that his wife was particular about flowers. That's all he had to say — "My wife is particular about flowers, so I need something special."

 Goofus would have to plan ahead — call a week ahead of time so they'd have something besides red roses or carnations — but it would be worth it.

 I hoped the story would have a happy ending, but I could see his words were falling on deaf ears.

 It wasn't that Goofus wasn't getting it. He didn't want it.

 "We been married 14 years and I never got her anything," he said, as if this were a good thing. "She don't expect it."

 I'm sure she don't. I'm sure he don't expect no divorce papers, neither, but that is neither here nor there.

 Gallant did not see the logic in this, which would have confirmed to me that he was in fact, a fictional character come to life, except that he was married to a friend of mine. Lucky dog.

 So Gallant told Goofus that was even more reason why he should give her flowers on Valentine's Day.

 "She'll love it," Gallant says.

 Goofus don't care.

 I know Goofus don't care, having once been acquainted with the Goofus type.

 One once told me that he couldn't celebrate on Valentine's Day because he had already made plans to set out corn, I thought I understood him to say.

 It had been a while since I'd helped my grandmother with her garden, but I was pretty sure that February was way too early to be planting corn. Actually, it was downright foolish. Maybe that's why he wanted to do it at night.

 So while I was a little puzzled as to why a math professor had to get a corn crop in the ground, at night, in February, I didn't say anything. I hadn't been back in East Texas that long — apparently gardening techniques had changed.

 He did ask me what kind of flowers I liked, so I figured I wouldn't be totally forgotten on Valentine's Day. Problem was, I like a lot of flowers, so it was hard for me to narrow it down.

 Finally, I just said that about the only kind of flower I didn't much care for was carnations. It's not that I hated them or anything — Martha Stewart does wonderful things with them — but carnations are tricky. In the hands of the less-sophisticated, they can be pretty darned tacky.

 So for my safety, and his, I warned him off carnations.

 I'll admit, when he hopped out of his truck with a bouquet that consisted of three carnations and a piece of chocolate taped to a stick, I was not in the best mood.

 For starters, I had since learned that when he said he had to set out corn, he wasn't talking about planting a garden, he was talking about scattering corn around in a field in the hope of attracting wild pigs, which he then planned to shoot.

 Pigs. This was the competition I couldn't beat out.

 Furthermore, I was hungry. I had worked through lunch in order to make the date, which I thought would include a meal of some sort. But no, he wasn't hungry, he said. He had eaten on the way. Oh, well. Good.

 I could have handled any one of these things — the pigs, the hunger, the carnations — but not all three.

 So when he asked me what was wrong, I told him.

 But did he apologize? No. He accuses me of having a character flaw because I didn't appreciate the effort he'd made to pull into a store on the way there to buy flowers he knew I didn't like.

 He's the one who's planned a Valentine's Day banquet for pigs and I'm the one with the character flaw?

 Oh, I had a flawed character all right. But not for long.

 Gallant was wasting his pearls.

 Corn. That's what pigs like.

Smothered Pork Chops

3 to 4 pork chops

Seasonings (salt and pepper or any kind of blend)

Water

1/2 c. chopped onions

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1/2 c. red wine

 Trim excess fat. Using the tenderizing meat mallet, pound seasonings into the meat. In a large skillet over medium heat, brown chops on one side. Add about a half cup of water, turn meat over and brown. Add more water as it evaporates. Stirr in onion, add soup and wine. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for about an hour. Add more water if necessary to keep the consistency of gravy.

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Karla DeLuca is editor and publisher of The Daily Sentinel. Her e-mail address is kdeluca@coxnews.com.