Your Dark Passenger

How could anyone hate Valentine’s Day?  It’s about candy and flowers and romance and poetry and stuffed animals and…blech.  Gag me already.  I could write a dissertation on what’s wrong with this holiday that’s been bastardized by a society that values stuff over people.

Don’t worry.  I won’t blather on for 10,000 words about how much I want to reach into the calendar of creation and rip February 14th out by it’s sappy red roots.  I won’t write an ode to…you get the drift.

Welcome to Day 3 of the 13 Days of Love.

So, why do I hate Valentine’s Day?  Two words: Middle School.

When you were growing up, did your school ever partake in some of the most boneheaded activities that were designed to make some feel inferior, all the while thinking it was a great idea?  Yeah.  I went to Coppell Middle School and they did a LOT of stupid crap like that.

It couldn’t have been that bad, right?  Uh-huh.  I only wish I was exaggerating.  Would you like to know what fresh hell they treated us to when I was in 7th grade?  (Too bad if you don’t because I’m going to tell.)

For Valentine’s Day 1992 (I think), they made us get permission slips signed, loaded us onto a bus and took us straight to hell for an afternoon of torture.  I’m sure you’ve been there; you just might know it as its other name: Roller Skating Rinks.

Now, I’m sure some of you might think I’m being melodramatic, but I promise you I’m not.  Let me give you a little background so you better understand:

• I’ve never been able to roller skate.  I mean AT ALL at all, peeps.  I learned how to roller blade right before high school, but I didn’t even have that option in 7th grade.  So perhaps you can see the flaw in the plan of putting the chick who can’t skate on wheels…
• My school sucked.  Scratch that.  My school district sucked.  Instead of having normal middle school set-ups like a decent district, they had everyone from all the elementary schools funnel into an intermediate school for 5th and 6th grade.  Then they split us up between two middle schools for 7th and 8th grade.  Thanks Coppell ISD for that r-tard move.  You can probably already guess that I went to one middle school and EVERYONE I was friends with was sent to the other one…
• And finally, here’s the thing that has screwed with my self-image for the whole of my life…Guys had no interest in me.  Zero.  I literally didn’t change in appearance from middle school all the way through high school so it’s not like I was one of the girls who didn’t get pretty until late.  I’ve just always looked the same.  I’m serious.  Even right now I don’t look all that much different from when I graduated high school.  Anyway.  Guys have no use for me in middle school yet once I set foot in high school - in another town because I moved - all that changed as if by magic…even though I didn’t change.  (There was a point in all that.  Hopefully you found it.  I don’t have a bleeping clue what I’m talking about anymore.)

Keeping all of the above in mind, let’s glide and fall back to the Valentine’s Day skating rink debacle.  Basically, I’m the leper on wheels who only has like two friends and I’m trapped in pink hearts and roses hell for HOURS.  Now, since I’m a chick, I could have just held hands with my friends and skated in circles like a moron and no one would have given it a second thought, but Satan - aka the DJ - had other plans for us.  Could we just skate around (or stumble, in my case) and have fun?  Nope.  DJ Satan Valentine wanted us to play games, he wanted sides to get picked, he wanted us to skate backwards - WTF?  Was he trying to kill me? - and then he did the most evil bastard thing he could possibly do…

Couples Skate.

Thank you, DJ Satan Valentine.  Let me just go gorge myself on fattening chocolate while you put on song after song after bleeping song of reminders that I’m totally and completely unloved.  ‘Preciate that.  You rock.  I’d tell you to rot in hell, but you work at the skating rink for minimum wage where you have to deal with kids puking on the floor after too much soda and cotton candy so I’m pretty sure you’re already there.

So there you go.  I was officially scarred for life at the age of 12 (I think.  We’re still assuming this was 1992.)

And what do we do once we’ve been mortally wounded?  We find ways to make ourselves feel better.  I did that by growing to hate Valentine’s Day with a fiery passion - even though I’ve consistently had someone on Valentine’s Day since 1994.  (It’s a wonder what changing schools can do for a girl.  Too bad the damage was already done.)

Here’s the odd thing.  I haven’t thought about that particular Valentine’s Day torture exercise in forever.  I only started thinking about it after having lunch with hubby because he told me he wasn’t sure if he should get me flowers or not.  What the bleep am I going to do with flowers?  It’s not like I’m working right now and have a desk to put them on so they’d just sit around the house and die - or Sydney Cat would want to eat them.  I think might have told him that.

Wow.  Y’all really should feel bad for hubby.  Poor guy has a really sweet romantic streak and he’s married to the one freak who thinks it’s all a bunch of crap - except when I don’t, of course.  Let’s not discuss the worst gift he ever got me for Valentine’s Day that set me off BIG TIME.  (Unless y’all want to hear about that.)

It’s your turn, peeps.  What do you think of Valentine’s Day?  Love it or hate it?  Any horror stories?  Probably can’t be any worse than the rollerskating leper…

Jen

“Let your dark passenger come out to play…Be your own nemesis!”

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