My Funny Valentine

I certainly don't dislike Valentine's Day.  It's a cute day.  The stores are all red and pink and white and stuff.  I'm just not all that "in" to commercial holidays.  I think it's too stressful for men, in particular.  Like they are suddenly supposed to be mind readers and just "know" what the perfect, most romantic gift is.  Some women are just so hard to please.

In my world, I tell my babydaddy exactly what I expect... and it had better be good.

It's got to be a card.

My husband always picks out the best cards in the whole wide Hallmark world.  And he writes just the nicest words.  It doesn't necessarily mean I get him a card.  Sometimes I do- sometimes I don't.  But it's not

"my thing".  But it's "his thing" and I don't let him deviate from that.

And every year around Valentine's my sweet husband will start to suggest places to go out for the "big" day.  My response is always a scrunchy face and a response along the lines of "but everywhere will be so crowded."

Of course, I am spoiled year round by my boo and I don't think it's fair to make the poor lad sweat it out for the sake of commercialism on that one February day each year.

But he'd better not forget the card.

My co-worker has a daughter who is 7.  She's sweet.  And my co-worker was telling me about the 'rule' that everyone in her daughter's class has to get a Valentine.  I remember that rule... do you?

In the very early years when my mom would take me to buy Valentine's cards I could pick and choose which of my nearest and dearest friends got them.  And then the "rule" went into effect, and suddenly we were "forced" to give every student in our class a card or none at all.

I'm like, so sure.  That's GOT to be a violation of some Constitutional Law, right?

And as an adult I sorta "get it".  Because of course kids are master counters and no one wants to get 3 Valentine's when 'Pretty McPopular' gets 18.  I never liked that girl very much.

But I can literally remember how devastated I was when that rule went into effect.  How can I give icky boys and mean girls Valentine's cards?

But I had to-  That was the rule. 

And what I also distinctly remember was the way I systematically laid out my cards the night before V-Day.

My mom always took us to the local grocery store and let us pick our generic cards out.  They usually came with 4 different designs.  I'm sure I opted, at least one year, for the ones with "Jem" on them.  (If you didn't love Jem, you were probably one of the ones I was apprehensive about giving a card to).

So anyway...

I'd like, totally sit down with my 4 designs and put the designs into piles.  My favorite cards went into one pile, second favorites into another, and so on. 

My favorite cards went to my "Best Friends Forever and Ever and Ever" and I would write personalized messages on them.

And then the suckiest, meanest people in my class would be recipients of my least favorite design and those cards had lame, innocuous phrases like "Have a Rockin' Day" and they would be signed, simply, "From Cambria".  No heartfelt message.  No XoXo.  Just my first name.

While none of us 7 and 8 year old said it that was our way of flipping the bird to a classmate in 3rd grade and saying, without saying, "I'm only giving you a Valentine because my teacher said I have to."

And of course, any Valentine's slogans that had phrases like "I like You" Or "Will You Be Mine" were automatically vetoed from being given to boys that I most certainly did not want to be mine.  The art of false- seduction can be very powerful, even in elementary school.

I admit, it was a time-consuming, pile-making endeavor.  But it was fun to send special well-wishes to my friends, to pick out my cards from the store (and quietly pray no one else from class bought the same ones- which someone always did...) and decidedly ink my messages or simply pen "From Cambria" to all those that pestered and annoyed me.

But if you're reading this, dear friend, I'm sure you would have been in pile number one -my favorite design.  And to all of you haters out there spying on my lame blog I say, simply:

'From Cambria'.