Chocolate is nice, diamonds better, but to some, a divorce is undoubtedly the best present to give on Valentines Day.

Michigan attorney Walter H. Bentley III is hosting a contest that will award a divorce to a man or woman who tells "the most compelling and convincing story." Examples he cites veer from the practical to the cruel-hearted.

"Someone diagnosed with cancer...maybe that's one reason their spouse no longer wants to be with them," he told ABC News.

Another? Finances. "Maybe [a couple] is struggling to make ends meet, and they don't have enough money for a divorce."

According to ABC News:

He got the idea...when one of his students in a night school class he teaches invited him to a party. "She'd just had her divorce finalized," says Bentley, "and she was celebrating. I'd never thought about that before - celebrating divorce. So, I thought, why not do something special for Valentine's Day? You can't find a new love before you close the chapter on the old."

The contest ends tonight, and more than 500 people have applied. (Sorry, Charlotte: It's limited to Michigan residents.)