My first memory of Valentine's Day comes from the second grade. It was my first year in public school and whether I celebrated Valentine's Day in christian school I can't remember, but all I remember from this Valentine's Day is having a lot of trouble actually spelling it. The class was making Valentine's Day bags to receive those tiny cartoon-themed valentines from each other and I remember becoming very frustrated with myself because I wanted to write "Happy Valentine's Day" inside of a big red heart on the front of my bag and I had to keep turning around to look at the board to figure out how to spell "Valentine's Day". It was very annoying.
After that my Valentine's Days became very not memorable, not that I gave it much thought. I've never really understood getting upset over one's relationship status specifically on February 14th when it is no different any other day of the year. I've never actually been in a relationship for heart day, and I've never gotten one of those candy grams at lunch in school, but during the latter years of school I did enjoy giving my friends Valentine's Day wishes.
During my sophomore year (I think) we had a series of pretty bad snow storms in January and February so Cecil County was actually off school on Valentine's Day. I was really disappointed about this because I had made cookies and chocolate bark and a few other treats and decorated brown paper bags to put everything in to give to my friends, but the storm came right before the weekend and we were off for a series of days so that my family and I had to eat all those treats ourselves. Bummer.
My junior year I had just broken up with an ex-boyfriend in January and we were trying the whole "Let's be friends because that's totally possible!" thing (it's not) and he ended up giving me a Valentine's Day card. I remember it being cute and funny but nothing much after that.
This year, of course, I was working at Hallmark for good ol' heart and while it was fun I hope I'm never there again for the madness.
My Valentine's Day started off about two weeks ago when I had to watch a tips video for the "Make Hearts Happy" event Hallmark was hosting before Valentine's Day. Throughout the four-part video Hallmark executives continually referred to Valentine's Day as "Val-Day twenty-thirteen" in the peppiest voice imaginable. I wanted to barf.
The triumph of Hallmark's Valentine's Day was the Cupig. It's a flying pig that sings and dances to it's own variation of the Cupid Shuffle. Freaking adorable, and by Feb. 12 no corporate Hallmark store in Delaware had any in stock.
While I liked the Cupig, the best part of this year for me was the customers. At least at Hallmark, men have very different shopping patterns compared to women.
Most older women wander and delight in personal treasures they find. Picking out cards is difficult for them because "there's just too many choices". They can spend a good hour simply looking and reading. Older men on the other hand aren't so happy. They either stand grumpily at the front of the store waiting, when they get impatient they stomp back to their wives to grumble about the time and then go back to waiting; or they wander themselves, feigning brief interest in cards or the various knick-knacks Hallmark offers. Generally the older the man the more bored he is about the whole process.
I think somewhere between the age of 20 and 30 individuals find a brief middle ground and find equal joy and excitement in sending gifts and cards to each other. While everyone expresses love differently you can generally tell when Cupid has hit them hard. Guys spend longer then the women in the card section and sometimes buy multiple cards for one person because he "just couldn't decide" (This when they ask for my opinion and make me read their cards-super awkward). This is my favorite stage because when someone is really in love it's cute to watch.
Teenagers are the absolute worst. They come in two extremes, either they are trying too hard to express to everyone that they really are in love and you can't tell them otherwise--they "really care about the girl [or boy]" and want everyone to know it--or they are absolutely too shy or embarrassed about the whole ordeal to even speak. At this point I don't know what to do because I can't decide if they can hear me, are genuinely mute, or having some kind of allergic reaction to gift-giving and that's why they are turning red. Either way, watching teenagers learn how to manage emotions and gift giving is annoying.
Of course there are exceptions to all of these observations. There are plenty of older couples who come in and shop together who are still in love as much as they were on their wedding day (when checking out they get really nervous and are like "Don't flip the card over my wife/and or husband can't see it!" Then they stare at me the whole time as if they just let me in on their secret and threatening me with their eyes is the only way to make sure I keep my mouth shut), and there are younger ones who will never reach that middle ground, and there are teenagers who actually know how to function and not act all weird about an emotion everyone else feels.
Everyone loves differently and expresses love in the ways they understand how to but being able to watch it unfold, even on a very basic, broad scale, is really fun, and funny, and heartbreaking, and inspirational, and exhausting, and everything else.
With all that being said here are my favorite moments from "Val-Day twenty-thirteen":
These two women had a hoot and a holler trying to pick out cards for their husbands that best expressed indifference. One of them actively employed me to find one for her. She told me at check out that one day I'll understand what it means to feel indifferent toward my husband. In the tenth grade my English teacher taught my class that indifference is the worst emotion because it breeds inaction. I think the relationship between a husband and wife is one of the coolest relationships a person can have on earth. I hope I never understand what that women told me.
I watched two grown men participate in an in depth conversation about candles. Who knew two mechanics could be so enthusiastic about such things?
Hallmark started selling fresh cut roses a few days before Valentine's Day. A boy my age at check out wanted to buy one for his girlfriend but didn't know if he had enough money. I watched him stare at them for a good thirty seconds in silence before I said "They are really beautiful, I think she'd love one". All he did was whisper to himself slowly "They are so beautiful". Creepy, sweet, and weird all at once. He didn't buy a flower.
Last night I was ringing up a guy who went the whole nine yards for his girlfriend. Chocolate, flowers, card, gift, everything. While I was bagging everything he called his girlfriend and was like "So babe, it's cool that we're not exchanging gifts, right? Just dinner is okay?" And in my head I was thinking "You trickster, you!". I thought it was super cute.
That's basically it. Yesterday sucked for me, but only because I worked for nine hours and was poop tired afterwards. My mom bought me chocolate so that made it better.
I hope you had a great Valentine's Day!
xoxox