Valentines

I remember the stupid valentines thing from all the way back in elementary school. Back then, our valentines were made out of construction paper and paper lace doilies, but that vanished sometime in the early 60s, when we got books of them, and cut them out. Even the envelopes had to be cut out and stuck together with paste. You had to be so careful to be fair and make sure you made one for every kid in the class, because everyone was supposed to have the same number of them in their box.

I can still taste the little silver balls (illegal, now) on top of the cupcakes.

Fortunately, by high school, we didn't have to put ourselves through the torture of telling everyone, in writing, that we liked them, while making it perfectly obvious that we didn't:

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Stay away from me
'Cause I hate you

Roses are Red
Except when they're pink
I'd like you more
If you didn't stink

Nope. No more of that. In high school, the popular kids had their lockers plastered with tributes, while the rest of us approached our naked lockers in a spirit of humiliation.

Jim usually got me a nice mushy card at Valentine's, and, if he knew what was good for him, chocolate.

Last night,I got myself a small heart-shaped box of chocolate, wrapped in a sufficient amount of red cellophane to conceal the fat content info on the bottom.

(I have always felt that including nutritional information of Valentine's chocolate is cruel and unusual punishment)

Anyway, I plan on spending tomorrow at work, and the evening, gorging on chocolate. Not a bad plan. I might even get a small bottle of wine.

What I'm not going to do is think about how my own love story went so horribly wrong.