Recently, Andrew Bean took some time to talk to the demigod behind the holiday. We thought that he would talk to him about the more famous hook-ups he inspired: Dido and Aeneas, Romeo and Juliet, and David Arquette and Courtney Cox. However, what he found out was infinitely more interesting.
Andrew Bean: How’s it hangin, Cupid?
Cupid: Slow and low, my friend.
AB: Alright. First thing’s first: How’s the love game?
C: Fantastic. More people are becoming disillusioned with love.
AB: Wait—why is that a good thing?
C: Used to be that I hit someone with the ol’ arrow, they’d fall in love, and stay with that person their whole life, even if I turned out to be grossly wrong. Now, with so may people divorcing and remarrying, people are falling in love up to 20 times in the course of their lifetimes, and I got that WORK! It doesn’t help that my aim and judgment have be getting shaker and shakier. In face, my increasingly shoddy work actually means I get paid more.
AB: It sounds like you love what you do, though.
C: Hell yeah. Plus I get paid by commission.
AB: Who pays you?
C: Hallmark, Disney, FTD, Russell Stover…y’know, the “Love Industry.” Companies that profit off fools falling in love.
AB: How much do you make?
C: 10 cents per drop. That may not seem like much, but when you factor in things like High School romance and rich old men being seduced by gold diggers, it really adds up.
AB: I see you have changed your traditional look. Care to tell us something about that?
C: My image guys say that I’m not taken seriously because, well, I’m a fat little baby who wears a diaper. So I lost some weight and got myself some new shorts and sunglasses—
AB: You’re wearing the diaper right now, though.
C: I really needed to take a dump, and I didn’t want to make you wait.
AB: That’s pretty goddamn disgusting. At least I know what that smell is now.
C: Hey, it works. Diaper comes in real handy when you’re sitting at a poker table for six hours at a time.
AB: Anyways, do you ever see yourself falling in love?
C: I think I’m about immune to love at this point. Also, I’m a eunuch, so that doesn’t really help matters.
AB: What does Cupid do on a day off?
C: I find someone to cover for me—I have some understudies—and I head to Vegas. Or Atlantic City. Or an Indian reservation. Basically, I go anywhere I can wager money on something. It’s actually getting to be a problem; I’m in debt about 260 grand now because I took the Bears and the points in the Super Bowl. I hate Rex Grossman. I’m gonna make it up, though, by betting on what will be the next big Hollywood couple. I’ve kinda got some insider information, if you know what I mean.
AB: So you spend most of your free time gambling?
C: Yes.
AB: And you plan to repay your debt by manipulating celebrities for your personal gain.
C: Also true.
AB: That’s pretty pathetic.
C: And how!
AB: Seriously, you should get some help for this.
C: It’s not like it interferes with my work. I can just send in bets on my BlackBerry and be done with it.
AB: Just think about what I said, OK? Finally, how do you see yourself?
C: I believe I am a man with a mild gambling addiction—OK, maybe a little more than mild—who does a vital public service.
AB: Thank you for your time, Cupid.
C: No problem. Hey, you up to go to Foxwoods tomorrow?
AB: Uh, I’ll pass.