In honor of Valentine's Day coming up, coupled with the fact that I'm super lazy, I've decided to reach deep into my dark and disturbing past to find a humor column I wrote for my college newspaper. It's about Valentine's Day and just how depressing it is. I wrote this six years ago, so I don't know how much it applies to things now, but pain seems to have a very long half-life.
So, without further ado, let us take a glimpse into the past and the revolting innerworkings of my mind.
It's just about Saint Valentine's Day. It's time to be placed in one of three categories: People with significant others who can expect presents, people without significant others who can also expect presents (damn their good looks, life is easy for them), and the third group into which many can fit including myself, people with nobody who can expect absolutely nothing.
I'd like to thank the Hallmark company for supplying us, once a year, (twice if you include Valentine's little short bus-ridding brother Sweetest Day) with another reason to feel unloved.
Don't get me wrong; Valentine's Day was super sweet when we were little kids. In elementary school everybody got involved. I remember going to school in the morning and turning a shoebox into a container with a hole in the top for the valentines. Then, after lunch, we would all circulate around the classroom, putting a card on each desk. It was a good system because everybody receieved something. Sure if you had a crush on somebody you might tape an extra lollipop inside the card, but other than that it was pretty much even steven for everybody.
But then junior high came and all the rules changed. Valentines became only for those who had girlfriends or boyfriends. The only exception to this rule was and always will be the "secret admirer." The only problem with the "secret admirer" is that you can't really depend on it happening. You can never find a good secret admirer when you need one. And on the occasion when the "secret admirer" is applying for the position of girlfriend/boyfriend, they end up looking like relatives of Quasimodo. And heaven forbid if you try the "secret admirer" thing yourself. That stuff only works in John Hughes movies.
The only saving grace for me after junior high was my mother. Even if everybody else looked at me as if I were a walking plague, I could always count on my mother for some Valentine's Day love. I would wake up in the morning to find a small present at the foot of my bed. When I was younger the presents were toys, as I grew they changed. Now she gives me silk valentines boxers. I'm not entirely too sure what she's thinking, but hey, who am I to complain? I'll wear anything, especially when I'm too lazy to do laundry.
Ever since junior high I have distanced myself from this depression-inducing holiday. It's easier that way. Now I tend to view February fourteenth with detached, bemused ambiguity. I just hang out with girls; this is because they over-gift each other. My sweet tooth quickly becomes satisfied from all the candy hearts and pieces of chocolate.
For those of us who will be alone this Valentine's Day, I can only offer this advice: don't take it personal. Don't worry, just think of February 14th as any normal day. Or better yet, acquire the ability to hibernate and sleep the day away.
But really, it's not such a big deal. Because when you get down to it there are enough of us in the third category to overpower those in the other two and take their valentines. Nothing captures the spirit of this holiday better than filling your belly with other people's tokens of love. I can't wait.
Wow, such words of insight and wisdom from young, 20-year-old Joshua. I would take them to heart if I not remembered that I was most likely sitting in my underwear eating a bowl of cherrios and beer at eight in the morning while writing this back in 2001. Which bring us to the lesson of the day: Take all advice with a grain of salt. Or was it Never start a land war in Asia? Oh well, one of those two. They both make sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment