Valentine’s Day is Just February 14 To Me

Valentine’s Day is like Earth Day. Don’t reserve showing your unabashed love for just one lousy day a year. Don’t fall into consumerism’s treacly trap lined in white lace and pink toile.

I think Valentine’s Day is dumb. And overrated. First of all, I can’t stand all those grown ups who still say Valentime’s Day. You can bet those are the same morons who say liberry and sammich. These are the people stuck in the web of eternal babytalk and ask the waiter for a lemon in their wawa. I am reminded of a girl who worked the front desk at our gym who admitted, unsolicited, that she still sucks her thumb in bed at age 30. This comment did not make us feel any better about the prospect of Deal nixing his thumb sucking habit before the callous on his little digit grows larger than the thumb itself.

But I digress..

Valentine’s Day is fun with kids because they squee over all holidays big and small. Children are undiscriminating when it comes to days that beckon chocolate. I can get behind that. Apparently Valentine’s Day is the new Halloween, minus costumes. You should see the red and pink foil wrapped loot Bird and Deal brought home. On another note, does February 14 even count as a real holiday? I mean, it doesn’t mark any milestones of Baby Jesus, celebrate the harvest, or warrant fireworks due to the ticking of Greenwich mean time or anything. Holiday is a bit hefty for Valentine’s Day IMHO. I almost hugged the waitress at Cantina 18 who wished us a Happy Monday instead of a Happy Valentine’s Day tonight.

Allow me to share a Valentine’s memory from the mid 80s. It was a time of leggings and long sweaters from the Limited with matching socks and scrunchies. It was when I wanted my life to be a John Hughes movie. I wanted nothing more than to have Molly Ringwald overtake my body and lead me to my own Jake Ryan.

When I was a junior in high school I was struggling in chemistry. I grew up wanting to be a doctor so I knew that acing passing chemistry was an integral part of reaching my goal. I tried ever so mightily to excel in that class. Alas, my brain chemistry just did not jive with any science classes beyond the level of dissecting a worm in seventh grade. Every second of that semester was a struggle. On Valentine’s Day our teacher wrote and read a special poem for everyone in the class. They were all of the roses are red variety, nothing fancy. This was a chemistry teacher after all, not a creative writing teacher. I sat on my hands while squirming in that hard wooden desk awaiting my turn. I shifted this way and that, unable to get comfortable in that seat with the desk attached with loose nuts that squeaked when I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Finally, she called my name. And here is what she read to me:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Everyone’s passing, why aren’t you?

As if I needed another reason to think this a stoopid holiday.