Please keep your VD to yourselves.

My dear friend Melissa sent me an email today with “VD” as the subject. I think it illustrates my romantic nature that “VD” instantly expanded to venereal disease in my mind. I thought it was kind of a personal thing to share with someone, even one’s hetero-lifemate. She was referring to Valentine’s Day, of course, and the teeth-grinding lameness of her co-workers receiving flowers two days prior to the ridiculous “holiday.” I do hope her giddy coworkers realize those flowers came early because the senders are cheap. You pay less for flowers if you have them delivered prior to the 14th, especially when it falls on a Saturday. That’s right, suckers, your boyfriend/husband/mom/stalker doesn’t love you enough to pay for weekend delivery.

I know the single girls out there are starting to feel down and hating themselves for it, because they don’t want to care about Forced-Display-of-Affection Day. But they do care, if only a teensy bit, because they’re human, and humans like chocolate. Affection is also nice, especially when it comes in a box with paper-lined compartments. I’m talking about good chocolate, like imported from Europe, made by fairies in a magic glen, with all-natural ingredients, not the corn syrupy turds they make in America.

I’m not in the single-girl camp; I’m in the mother camp, but we also have good reason to despise this trumped-up occasion. I’m lucky this year in that Paolo is old enough to address his own cards, and Luca is too young to exchange them. However, I just blew my lunch break (and $16.00) at the grocery store agonizing over what treats to buy for my sons’ parties at school tomorrow. There were two ten-foot-long tables in the bakery piled high with pink-frosted goodies. I’d volunteered to bring cookies for Paolo’s class of 22, so that narrowed my choices down to seven varieties. All the cookies come 10 in a box, so I had to overbuy by eight because I certainly couldn’t underbuy by two.

I volunteered to bring fruit for Luca’s party because I’d just finished ripping out the soul of his afternoon teacher for feeding him candy and chips. Donating cupcakes seemed like hypocrisy. I decided on grapes, which I’ll just need to wash and cut in half.

And THEN I had to grab something for my book club meeting tomorrow night. It’s couples night, but my Valentine will be home with the boys. Since I was in produce, I grabbed a pound of strawberries. That’s appropriate, no? I’ll just need to wash and slice those, as well. I have my Valentine’s homework cut out for me, and I still have to plan a nice meal and dessert to make for my family.

I give and I give. But what about me? What about my European gourmet chocolate needs?