It is a fact that two words still strike terror in my heart: Valentine’s Day. This is not because I don’t believe in love and hearts and all. It’s just that every Feb. 14 I suffer unfortunate flashbacks to my grade-school days, which, truth be told, occurred lots of decades ago.
Back in those olden days, elementary teachers deviously figured out that it’d be great fun to torture students by forcing them to exchange Valentine’s Day cards with the other students in the class. Now by “card” I am referring to the cheap-o paper cutouts purchased in bulk where one box contained, by conservative estimates, some 4,787 cards. In our school we even designed our own “mail boxes” out of cigar boxes. This endeavor, no doubt the boys’ favorite activity of all time, consisted of covering the cigar box stylishly with aluminum foil before lavishly affixing approximately 600 cut-out hearts and doilies via library paste (calorie count: 45 per tablespoon. Oh, come on, admit it – you loved eating that stuff!).
The decision about who you gave what valentine to was critical. You saved your super cute valentines for your best friends. In kindergarten I endured a rather unpleasant classmate named Marsha who told me one day that the sidewalk was poison. “You’re gonna die,” she warned, and I walked each step to my front door waiting for the moment when I dropped dead. I made sure she got the ugliest card.
Mandatory was the special “teacher” valentine card that your mom bought at the dime store along with a lacy valentine handkerchief that you folded up inside before racing up to the teacher’s desk on Valentine’s Day to deposit it there before any of the cool kids could see you. To this day, garbage officials across America are scratching their heads about the origin of tons of old heart hankies found compacted in landfills.
The best valentine was always reserved for the boy that I had a crush on that particular … well, moment – because back then the recipient of my crush was subject to frequent and abrupt change. In first grade it was Davy because he owned a most excellent red plaid shirt that he wore practically every day, which makes me feel pronounced sympathy for his mother because I haven’t a clue how she got it peeled it off his skinny little body. Davy gave me many meaningful glances at school, which might have, honestly, been gas. So there I was gaga over Davy and his red shirt (my feelings were deeply profound in those days) and figuring out which valentine was worthy to be his, when our teacher, Miss Wheatley, suddenly announced: “Class, this will be Davy’s last day at school. He and his family are moving to a new city.” Oh, the heartbreak!
By third grade I noticed a pattern forming. Whatever cute boy I had a crush on was already spoken for by another girl – and they were always the adorable little pony-tailed girls with “cute-girl” sounding names like Connie or Kathy. I figured my parents had tragically misnamed me so I was doomed to get picked by the dorkiest guys in the school. And this year the boy who came after me bearing a mushy valentine was Frank – as in “Glass-Eye Frank.” Yes, this kid had a real glass eye (which sounds like a mutually exclusive concept, actually). The guys, of course, thought this was ultra cool and hung around Frank in hopes he’d take out his eye. As for me, I lived in mortal fear that he would. So when Frank suffered his Valentine’s Day crush on me, I did what any rational third-grade girl would do: I threw up in class and got sent home.
By sixth grade a lot of the kids were “going steady.” This consisted of a girl wearing a boy’s ring conspicuously around her neck on a gold chain. Of course all the cute boys were already used up by the “cute-girl”-named girls like Sandy or Amy and there I was, consumed with ring-envy. Just when it looked like Valentine’s Day would pass me by with no ring to wear around my neck, I noticed that Larry, the big boy who sat across from me in reading, was gazing in my direction. Now Larry had been in sixth grade about 37 years; he was the original Incredible Hulk and not what I’d envisioned as steady-boyfriend material.
Sweating bullets, I took the large, pink envelope he passed to me across the aisle. Inside was the mushy card with a written inscription at the bottom: “Gale, will you go steady with me?” Let me be frank here: the mental skirmish that took place inside my head was colossal. Larry was, of course, majorly icky – but here at last was my golden opportunity to wear a boy’s ring around my neck. (I admit, by sixth grade I was still incredibly deep.) Finally, I made a brilliant decision.
“OK, I answered, “I’ll go steady with you but only if you promise never to call me.”
“But how will I ask you to the movies?” he responded in amazement.
“Movies???” I squeaked. “We have to go to movies?”
So I passed on Larry’s offer, but to this day Feb. 14 produces a bothersome eye twitch as I flash back to those disturbing Valentine’s days in grade school. Is there a cure for this trauma? Why, yes, I think there is. I told my husband about an ad I saw the other day for a $98,000 pearl necklace and – by George – I think that’s the ticket! Because if expensive jewelry isn’t a cure for those creepy flashbacks, I don’t know what is.
Gale Hammond is a 23-year Morgan Hill resident. Reach her at
Ga*********@ao*.com
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