With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, things are really heating up at Heart Attack Headquarters — and that’s not just because I have my space heater running 24/7 to combat these frigid 50-degree temperatures (give me a break, buildings in LA don’t have insulation!)

Valentine’s Day is basically the Super Bowl for us Heart Attackers, but instead of watching to see if we’re going to hate the GoDaddy commercial again (we will), we’re actually in the game. As this is my first solo Valentine’s Day in a few years, I’m going to stop selfishly thinking of my own plans and concentrate on making your 2012 V-Day the best ever.

I’m a firm believer that you can’t know the right thing to do if you don’t know the wrong thing to do. With that in mind, here are some terrible ideas to absolutely avoid on Valentine’s Day:

Mid-Winter Picnic
I know I’ve already voiced my support of picnics for dates, but this is one occasion where you’re going to have to leave the Yogi-bait at home. It’s the middle of winter, fella, and I’ve never met a girl that likes to be cold. Even if you live in usually sunny environs, skip the outdoor blanket party for Valentine’s Day. If you absolutely must stick with a picnic to show off your mad pasta salad skills, make it the indoor variety. But don’t be surprised when she tells you her back hurts and she needs to go home to lay down alone for the rest of the night.

Romantic Pool Suites
When I was a kid, my family used to pass a place called Sybaris every time we went to my grandparents’ house. It was explained to me then as “a hotel with pools in every room.” To my 9-year-old self, that sounded amazing. To my adult self, that shit is disgusting. We all know what’s really going on in that place. All of the TripAdvisor reviews note how unexpectedly clean the place is, as if they were expecting the place to have visible marks of the last inhabitants. Clearly the biggest selling point of an adult hotel of this variety is that it doesn’t look nearly as foul as it surely is under blacklight inspection. If you have a “Romantic Pool Suite” hotel near you and you try to take a lady there on Valentine’s Day, I hope you accidentally swallow a whole mouthful of that water. Don’t worry — I’m sure it’s really, really clean.

Dinner Wherever Your Ex Works
This only applies if your ex works at a restaurant or a bar, but it’s just an all-around bad idea.

Chuck E. Cheese
Unless your date is an 8-year-old child, this is not the place for Valentine’s Day. If your date is an 8-year-old child, send me an email right away. I have a very nice friend in law enforcement that I’d like to introduce you to.

Anything on a Bed of Roses
Bon Jovi made it sound so appealing. He wants to lay you down on a bed of roses! Think about how sweet that would be! Now think about how excruciatingly painful that would actually be. He didn’t say “bed of rose petals,” he said “bed of roses.” Roses have thorns, J.B.J. Thorns hurt.

If you lay your date down on a bed of roses, her back is going to be scratched up something awful. If you care about the safety of your date in any way, shape, or form, please avoid employing a bed of roses into your evening at all costs. Remember, there’s nothing romantic about a trip to the emergency room, even if it’s rose-related.

I leave you this week with these dulcet tones: