If you celebrate or even love Valentine’s Day then you probably want to bypass reading this post.
This notion of ‘Be Mine’, ‘Be My Valentine’, and a host of other sayings begins its indoctrination in elementary school, maybe sooner. I don’t remember the first time I was forced by my teacher to go out and get those packs of Valentine’s Day cards for my classmates.
We would tape a little bag on the edge of our desk and run around the classroom like the little gremlins we were chucking those cards into those little red, pink, or white bags. Admittedly that was the most fun. Then we’d sit down with glee and couldn’t wait to see who got what from whom. And if that wasn’t enough we had to do that ‘Secret Valentine’ thing. By golly if the majority of us kids didn’t come to school with those boxes of Life Savers to give to our ‘Secret Valentine.’ Honestly even then I hated it. Perhaps it’s because inevitably I always picked the name of the kid I couldn’t stand and he or she couldn’t stand me. Oh the Horror! The Horror! The angst I went through to get that box of Life Savers. So maybe, just maybe that’s when my psyche was ingrained, that I would be buying Valentine’s Day stuff for people I didn’t like.
Over the years, I have bought many a Valentine for people I care a great deal about — my mom, dad, sister, grandparents, boyfriends, best friends and each time it stirs up that same angst from so long ago. It actually angers me now that this is the one day — outside of birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas) that gives people a pass on professing their ‘unconditional’ love for someone who they supposedly love 364 other days of the year (365 on Leap Year). Or perhaps it’s the sheer capitalism in it.
It’s the one day in which it’s okay for a grown man to give a grown woman (perhaps the mother of his children) a stuffed bear with a big ole red heart in the center that says: “I Love You”, “Be Mine”, or some other trite saying. And of course the heart-shaped box of chocolates along with the heart-shaped balloon. Oh dear, I very nearly forgot the flowers. The flowers that wilt and die seven to ten days after you’ve gotten them, which typically coincides with you eating the last chocolate out of your heart-shaped chocolate box. It’s also the one day that your ‘Valentine’ is über nice to you. Again what happened to the other days of the year?
Flower shops and jewelery stores and lingerie stores and Godiva and Lindor chocolates love to see you coming. It’s definitely their most lucrative day of the year. I of course definitely appreciate you contributing to the economy on this oh so important and ‘special day’.
Some say that I’m a Valentine’s Day Grinch because I’m single. I can safely assure you that is not why I don’t like Valentine’s Day.
Note: WordPress is always talking about plagiarizing yourself and I just did.
20/20 Hines Sight 