Valentine's Day Massacre (Profit Massacre That Is)

It's been over a week since Valentine's Day, which as everyone knows is one of the most time-honored celebrations to profess love to those near and dear.

And if your a chocolate company, a teddy bear factory, or the artisan in charge of making cheesily embroidered lingerie...it's the biggest sales period of the year (or at least one of them, I know Arbor Day is growing bigger each year)

So I was really surprised (and a little bit annoyed) when I went to my local Hallmark store on Valentine's Day to buy the gf a card...and I find the doors shut and locked and the lights off.

There, just beyond the closed doors, sat rows and rows of Valentine's Day cards, presents, and other accessories.

Ones that no doubt would never be sold after Valentine's Day.

So why, on what must be one of the busiest days of the year for Hallmark, could a store possibly be closed?!?

Does the Turkey Farm close on Thanksgiving???

The liquor store on New Years Eve???

The Fireworks Store on the 4th of July???

So, I wondered, how the hell could a store manager in good conscience close his Hallmark store and NOT be fired for near-criminal business negligence???

You could argue that the store shouldn't count on people putting off Valentine's Day purchases until the actual day of the holiday.

To those people, I'd suggest they reacquaint themselves with Americans, some of the laziest procrastinators in the universe. So that argument seems unlikely.

I also wondered if maybe the store isn't normally opened on Saturday's and therefore couldn't get insurance or something to stay open. But that also seems unlikely.

Now, there's the matter of location.

This particular Hallmark store is located on the Chicago Pedway, which is an underground tunnel of restaurants and shops that caters to weekday business customers (and to MBA students that happen to live in business-heavy areas)

OK, so it's not a place where every store is open on weekends. However, as evidence I'd point to the fact that both McDonald's, located approximately 50 feet away, and a hair salon, approximately 100 feet away, stay open on Saturdays.

They obviously find it profitable to stay open on Saturdays...so why the hell didn't Hallmark come to the same conclusion?

I don't know, and I can't think of any reasonable answer...but I'd be happy for someone at Hallmark to offer up any insights (in the event that they stumble across the blog)