The V Word
This was a Valentines Day entry (complete with small useful diagram) I wrote for my old blog. I'm reposting it here just for fun.
Well, Happy...look you don't really want me to say it do you? Because if you're actually reading this right now, chances are you're either spending the holiday alone, or you're at work and getting a little surfing done, two things that indicate that your Valentine's day may be less than stellar (join the club).
So I have this thing with Valentine's day. I hate it. When you're terminally single, Valentine's day is a day of exquisite torture. Every idiot around you is wearing red and pink (two colors that rarely look good on anybody except a 13 year old girl), giving each other chocolate (because I'm sure making yourself fatter will exponentially increase your chances at "love"), and accepting large orders of flowers from their loved ones, each one gaudier than the last. Not that I try to ruin it for everybody else. Whenever some Necco candy heart addled moron bounds up to me with a cheery "Happy Valentines Day!", I simply nod and smile, although the fact that my teeth are clamped together with as many g-forces as a space shuttle reentering Earth's atmosphere may render my smile a bit fixed.
My worst Valentine's day to date was when I was a junior in college. I was just getting over a bit of a letdown in the romance department (namely the hope that I would ever have any) and was feeling pretty morose. I decided to just spend the day alone, relaxing, treating myself to some new books and a couple of movies. Try to forget that it was Valentine's day at all, but rather just a day to decompress in solitude.
Here's the problem with that. Don't attempt to spend Valentine's day alone. Because invariably, your friends assume that because you don't have a SO to spend the day with, that means you must want to spend every waking moment with them. Even if they have someone, they will attempt to drag you along with them all day, as if afraid you may try to do yourself in by repeatedly giving yourself paper cuts with all of the drugstore valentines you receive, finally bleeding to death on the floor from a million tiny wounds.
My friends would not leave me alone. One called at 7:30 in the morning wanting to know if I'd like to attend the Valentine's breakfast at the dining hall with her and her boyfriend. No, but thanks, I replied. I received no less than eight invitations that day to go somewhere; to the movies, to lunch at Friendly's ("they're having a couples special!", my friend Tracy exclaimed, as if the fact that it would cost more for my meal alone than it would for her and her boyfriend's would somehow clinch the deal), to a Valentine's service at church, to go put-put golfing (with a group containing no fewer than five couples), and finally, the crowning insult, to go to a Swing dance. At that I gave a sort of nervous, high-pitched laugh. It was an odd sound and my friend Maria said in a concerned tone, "No, then?"
And then there were the deliveries. Every ten minutes, or so it seemed, valentines would come skating under my door, little pre-punched missives of artificial cheer, with cartoon characters happily exclaiming "Be Mine!" or "Have a Heart-y Day!". By noon, I felt as if I might simply reach up and pluck my own eyes out with my bare hands. I got the bright idea to shove a box against my door, blocking the space underneath, but people started shoving the Valentines into the doorjamb, and I gave up in despair. I lay on my bed, cursing Saint Valentine, hoping that his martyrdom had been slow and excruciatingly painful. And that when he had got to the pearly gates, Saint Peter had handed him a Spongebob Squarepants valentine and told him to go to hell.
At about 4:30, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to a pair of arms holding the most enormous flower arrangement I had ever seen. It was comprised mostly of huge red heirloom roses with sprigs of baby's breath liberally sprinkled here and there. It was in a gigantic flower pot covered in pink foil. It had a small red mylar balloon heart on a stick coming out of one side, and a pink card proclaiming "Happy Valentine's Day" caught in the other side. The whole effect was so garish, so beyond the dictates of good taste, that I felt slightly ill. Just then, the face of a tired looking woman appeared from behind the flowers. She actually had to shove the plant aside with her face so she could be seen. "Do you know Maria Algani?" she asked impatiently.
"Erm", I managed to reply. Maria was one of my closest friends, lived across the hall from me and was the same one who had asked me to go to a Swing Dance earlier.
"Well," the woman snapped, "she's not here and I got a lot of deliveries to make. Think you could just sign for this and deliver it to her yourself when she gets in?"
"Unh," I said. She dumped the pot unceremoniously into my arms and presented her clipboard for me to sign, which I managed to do despite having to hold a one ton flower arrangement in my left arm.
After I closed the door behind her, I looked up in the air.
"What?!?!" I said to whatever deity was in charge of this madness. "Have I pissed you off lately or something? Is that it?"
Receiving no reply, I marched to my desk and placed the monstrosity upon it. Muttering to myself, I turned my back on it and flipped on the television. I tried to lose myself in the tube, trying to find a show that wasn't about Valentine's day. I finally found a rerun of Matlock. Perfect, I thought. The task of convincing oneself that there's a lawyer in the world that only represents the innocent takes considerable concentration, just the thing to take my mind off things.
But even Andy Griffith's strange, Alzheimer's like behavior in the courtroom couldn't capture my attention. My eyes kept being drawn back to that damn half-a-greenhouse sitting on my desk. It seemed to mock me with a smugness that was barely tolerable. "Hi there!" it seemed to say. "I'm a commercial representation of love! I bring happiness and warm fuzzies to those that are even the least bit fanciable to the opposite sex! Since that's not you, I was wondering if you could just hide in the closet until I'm delivered to my rightful owner! Thanks!"
Finally, I could no longer take it. Uttering a strangled cry, and a loud "Fuck!", I threw on my shoes and coat and wrenched open my door where I promptly stepped in a growing pile of heart shaped candy that had apparently been too big to fit underneath. Another profanity, and I was gone. I spent the rest of the day ensconced in a library carrel, playing Yahoo! Bingo and reading The Stranger.
So, anyways, I hope I've entertained at least some of you with my Valentine's hell story. Here's to you: hope you make it through the day without making a visit to the loony bin! Happy Valentine's Day.
Well, Happy...look you don't really want me to say it do you? Because if you're actually reading this right now, chances are you're either spending the holiday alone, or you're at work and getting a little surfing done, two things that indicate that your Valentine's day may be less than stellar (join the club).
So I have this thing with Valentine's day. I hate it. When you're terminally single, Valentine's day is a day of exquisite torture. Every idiot around you is wearing red and pink (two colors that rarely look good on anybody except a 13 year old girl), giving each other chocolate (because I'm sure making yourself fatter will exponentially increase your chances at "love"), and accepting large orders of flowers from their loved ones, each one gaudier than the last. Not that I try to ruin it for everybody else. Whenever some Necco candy heart addled moron bounds up to me with a cheery "Happy Valentines Day!", I simply nod and smile, although the fact that my teeth are clamped together with as many g-forces as a space shuttle reentering Earth's atmosphere may render my smile a bit fixed.
My worst Valentine's day to date was when I was a junior in college. I was just getting over a bit of a letdown in the romance department (namely the hope that I would ever have any) and was feeling pretty morose. I decided to just spend the day alone, relaxing, treating myself to some new books and a couple of movies. Try to forget that it was Valentine's day at all, but rather just a day to decompress in solitude.
Here's the problem with that. Don't attempt to spend Valentine's day alone. Because invariably, your friends assume that because you don't have a SO to spend the day with, that means you must want to spend every waking moment with them. Even if they have someone, they will attempt to drag you along with them all day, as if afraid you may try to do yourself in by repeatedly giving yourself paper cuts with all of the drugstore valentines you receive, finally bleeding to death on the floor from a million tiny wounds.
My friends would not leave me alone. One called at 7:30 in the morning wanting to know if I'd like to attend the Valentine's breakfast at the dining hall with her and her boyfriend. No, but thanks, I replied. I received no less than eight invitations that day to go somewhere; to the movies, to lunch at Friendly's ("they're having a couples special!", my friend Tracy exclaimed, as if the fact that it would cost more for my meal alone than it would for her and her boyfriend's would somehow clinch the deal), to a Valentine's service at church, to go put-put golfing (with a group containing no fewer than five couples), and finally, the crowning insult, to go to a Swing dance. At that I gave a sort of nervous, high-pitched laugh. It was an odd sound and my friend Maria said in a concerned tone, "No, then?"
And then there were the deliveries. Every ten minutes, or so it seemed, valentines would come skating under my door, little pre-punched missives of artificial cheer, with cartoon characters happily exclaiming "Be Mine!" or "Have a Heart-y Day!". By noon, I felt as if I might simply reach up and pluck my own eyes out with my bare hands. I got the bright idea to shove a box against my door, blocking the space underneath, but people started shoving the Valentines into the doorjamb, and I gave up in despair. I lay on my bed, cursing Saint Valentine, hoping that his martyrdom had been slow and excruciatingly painful. And that when he had got to the pearly gates, Saint Peter had handed him a Spongebob Squarepants valentine and told him to go to hell.
At about 4:30, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to a pair of arms holding the most enormous flower arrangement I had ever seen. It was comprised mostly of huge red heirloom roses with sprigs of baby's breath liberally sprinkled here and there. It was in a gigantic flower pot covered in pink foil. It had a small red mylar balloon heart on a stick coming out of one side, and a pink card proclaiming "Happy Valentine's Day" caught in the other side. The whole effect was so garish, so beyond the dictates of good taste, that I felt slightly ill. Just then, the face of a tired looking woman appeared from behind the flowers. She actually had to shove the plant aside with her face so she could be seen. "Do you know Maria Algani?" she asked impatiently.
"Erm", I managed to reply. Maria was one of my closest friends, lived across the hall from me and was the same one who had asked me to go to a Swing Dance earlier.
"Well," the woman snapped, "she's not here and I got a lot of deliveries to make. Think you could just sign for this and deliver it to her yourself when she gets in?"
"Unh," I said. She dumped the pot unceremoniously into my arms and presented her clipboard for me to sign, which I managed to do despite having to hold a one ton flower arrangement in my left arm.
After I closed the door behind her, I looked up in the air.
"What?!?!" I said to whatever deity was in charge of this madness. "Have I pissed you off lately or something? Is that it?"
Receiving no reply, I marched to my desk and placed the monstrosity upon it. Muttering to myself, I turned my back on it and flipped on the television. I tried to lose myself in the tube, trying to find a show that wasn't about Valentine's day. I finally found a rerun of Matlock. Perfect, I thought. The task of convincing oneself that there's a lawyer in the world that only represents the innocent takes considerable concentration, just the thing to take my mind off things.
But even Andy Griffith's strange, Alzheimer's like behavior in the courtroom couldn't capture my attention. My eyes kept being drawn back to that damn half-a-greenhouse sitting on my desk. It seemed to mock me with a smugness that was barely tolerable. "Hi there!" it seemed to say. "I'm a commercial representation of love! I bring happiness and warm fuzzies to those that are even the least bit fanciable to the opposite sex! Since that's not you, I was wondering if you could just hide in the closet until I'm delivered to my rightful owner! Thanks!"
Finally, I could no longer take it. Uttering a strangled cry, and a loud "Fuck!", I threw on my shoes and coat and wrenched open my door where I promptly stepped in a growing pile of heart shaped candy that had apparently been too big to fit underneath. Another profanity, and I was gone. I spent the rest of the day ensconced in a library carrel, playing Yahoo! Bingo and reading The Stranger.
So, anyways, I hope I've entertained at least some of you with my Valentine's hell story. Here's to you: hope you make it through the day without making a visit to the loony bin! Happy Valentine's Day.
