THOSE CRAZY VALENTINE'S TRADITIONS

The holiday anticipated and dreaded by many is almost here. Before finding my guy, Valentine's Day was a potential bright spot in the winter to look forward to that almost always ended up being a dismal disappointment. Usually, it consisted of me day dreaming that the guy I had a crush on, who had never really talked to me before and probably didn't even know my name, approached me in the hallway with confessions of undying love. Sometimes my mind cast a movie star as the leading man, who I imagined would pull up to school in a limo and take me away from everything, like Richard Gere did for Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN. Ah, daydreams can be nice sometimes...

...Then, real life crashes you right back on down. What Valentine's Day traditions does your school have? Here are some of my favorite real Valentine's Day experiences (favorite being used mostly sarcastically here).

Carnations: One school I went to has a long standing tradition called the "Flower Power Drive" (OK, I may be making up that title, but a lame name goes with a lame tradition) where you hand over a dollar to the student council, pick a carnation (red means passion-insert gag noise here, pink is love/like, and white is friendship), write a note to attach to the flower, and the carnation/card package is delivered to the recipient of your choice in homeroom the morning of the Hallmark holiday. In an ideal world, this would be a perfectly adorable tradition where everyone would get their own massive bouquet and dance around happily while reading their notes. However, we all know that world only exists in an alternate universe where acne isn't a problem and everyone gets asked to prom. The worst part was, the rep from Student Council delivering them would announce everyone's name one at a time and when your name was called you had to go to the front of the class to retrieve your flowers or lack there of, so trying to keep the amount you got private wasn't an option. I remember that some girls, like most of the cheerleaders, would get dozens of all the different colors. Other girls wouldn't get any. My friends and I took note of those girls who came up carnationless in our grade--who were all really nice, by the way--and would send them a white one. After all, if I hadn't had my few super close friends to count on, most years I wouldn't have gotten any. We all had to look out for each other--this holiday tradition was like combat of the ego. It's like the school created this tradition of a real popularity contest masquerading as fun where they could gather statistics. One year, I did actually get a pink rose and almost freaked out on site. When I opened it, the sender was indeed my very secret crush, who was a good friend of mine. Our relationship was girl likes boy/boy sees girl as sister type, so I was thrilled. However, upon further inspection, I saw that he had signed the card, "Your Friend." Your friend?! Imagine my humiliation when he confessed that he was color blind and hadn't noticed the difference between the pale pink and off white of the flowers. That was the best, really. Actually, that flower and the discussion of its color led to one of my first boyfriends and someone who is still a good friend of mine today. This tradition also taught my friends and I that, regardless of how many metaphorical carnations we will get throughout life, we have the power in being able to give them to make someone's day.

Valentine's Day Assemblies: On this particular year, I was sitting in the back of the auditorium counting down the hour until school was over. They had forced the entire student body to attend their LUV (yeah, it was spelled that way) Assembly, which was intended to create student morale but most of us loathed. I was simply minding my own business, writing a note to a friend about how dumb the gathering was, when I heard my name over the loud speaker. Total and complete humiliation! After protesting, two teachers came up and forced me to walk down to the stage for our school's version of The Dating Show as reluctant contestant number three. The guy we were competing for was a foreign exchange student from Guatemala. Whenever it was my turn, he kept asking me to repeat myself, which made me turn bright red, making the crowd fall further and further into laughter. I searched for any phrase I had picked up in my three years of Spanish class, and could only conjure up "Te amo" (which means I love you). Unfortunately for me, it is also phonetically very close to "Te llamo" (What is your name?). I kept saying "Te amo" over and over again so he kept repeating Alejandro, which is of course, his name. When the judging came around, Alejandro said to the host, "I don't think I can go with contestant number three. She can't even remember my name." You can guess how I ultimately feel about assemblies where student participant is mandatory. Ugh.

Old School Cards: My favorite tradition wasn't an official one, the students just randomly started it. We would buy those little Valentine's Day cards that you give out in elementary school and put them in each other's lockers. Then, you could read them on your own time and no one had to know how many you got. One time, I even gathered up my courage and sent an anonymous one to the guy I liked that year. He had no clue who it was and went around asking everyone. I didn't have the guts to tell him it was me, but my friends and I enjoyed watching him chase the mystery.

My favorite high school Valentine's celebration was the year it fell on a Friday and my closest friends came over. We ordered pizza, watched girlie movies like YOU'VE GOT MAIL, and stayed up most of the night talking, laughing and making fun of those stupid but right-of-passage Valentine's traditions. I do also like the messages on those little candy hearts. That's just me, though.