☭ UHX

We all know it is a dumb manufactured holiday
that it is heteronormative and materialistic
that its color scheme is obnoxious
and that St. Valentine was shot with arrows til he died

every year my old man gives me a rant about compulsory heteronormative monogamy and its enforcement by the greeting card industry, which then devolves into a general discourse on capitalism. I look forward to this rant because it's how I mark the passage of time, and I like watching my old man's mouth move while he yells about corporate america. This year, though, he's in France! I'M NOT GETTING ANYTHING FOR VALENTINES DAY!!!!!

What are your thoughts on this stupidest of holidays?

Remember V Day in grade school when everyone had to give everyone else a valentine so nobody got their feelings hurt? And remember spending hours poring over the valentine your crush gave you, trying to see if there was any hidden information about how secretly he really did love you even though he showed no signs of this in real life? The one I particularly remember was from my decade-long crush, Patrick, and it was a Pizza Hut brand valentine that showed a piece of pizza being lifted from out of a Pizza Hut brand pizza pan, and the legend read: "You're a slice above the rest!" on the back he had written "PAT." I clutched this valentine for days, obsessing over it, trying to read clues in his handwriting, trying to figure out which other girl(s) in class had received the same valentine (you know they were just sheets of perforated cards you ripped off, there would be like 4 or 5 designs repeated again and again) and what that meant.

It turned out it didn't mean anything. Remember designing your valentine box that you hung on your desk? And then some people's crazy mothers had baked cupcakes for every student with hearts on them or whatever? And you thought "WHAT A WEIRDO" even as you stuffed cupcake in your mouth

Hey people with grade school aged children, is this still a thing? compulsory valentines? I remember it was like homework, your mom would nag you to do your valentines and you'd be like "UGHHHHH." Spending hours on the ones to your friends and then just writing your name on the ones to the lame-os. I remember it was so humiliating to have to give valentines to the girls in class who were mean to me