Let’s get this out of the way: Valentine’s Day is a capitalist holiday that reinforces traditional gender roles, makes some people overlook terrible relationship issues and settle for awful partners because one single day went dreamily well, makes some single people feel less awesome, and appropriates a version of a religious figure to encourage secular hyper-consumerism.
But, I get it, a lot of folks are really into it. (*shrugs*) Anyway! Today, write about Valentine’s Day in grade school, and one memory you have of that time.
Here’s what I will write about today: In fourth grade, we all had to bring paper valentines to everyone in class. I decided to forego the store-bought pre-printed ones, and make mine. (Very on-brand.) So, I cut little squares of paper, and used a little rubber stamp set I had of various animals, then wrote in little puns on each card. (Like the owl stamp got a “Who wants to be my Valentine?,” the rabbit stamp became a “Hoppy Valentine’s Day,” the cat stamp became a “Have a purrrrr-fect Valentine’s Day!” and so on. So very, very Ralph Wiggum a la choo-choo-choose you, amirite?) Anyway, I carefully addressed the outside of each folded paper to each one of my classmates, and sealed each one with a sticker. My mom wanted to help (likely, she was like, this kid is going to be up all night with this shit, so I’m going to help and make this go faster, bless her heart) but her puns weren’t quite flowing according to my vision. Which I didn’t know because I was engrossed in my creative process and didn’t check her work. But I should have because what resulted was a handful of non-puns that made things super weird the following day like the Valentine I gave to a boy in my class with a little mouse stamp and handwriting that read—unbeknownst to me!— “I sniff you out, Valentine!” Do you know what happens when you give a nine year old boy (or anyone ever, for that matter) a Valentine that refers to sniffing them? Nothing good, that’s what. I will never, ever forget the look on that kid’s face, and the ensuing ewwww Amy Guth wants to sniff people! Probably their butts!