Valentine's Day: A Story

Best Movie Ever.

Back when I was in college I had both the worst and the best valentine's day ever. Let me explain.

It happened in two parts:

Part I: The Worst
In which our plucky heroine is disappointed by life and love and also her bitches.

It was Senior year and like most people at my small liberal arts college for girls who wear leopard print jackets and boys who wear skinny jeans, I was stressed out and terrified about what would happen to me after I graduated in a few short months. I spent the days alternately worrying about the future and then drinking enough vodka to forget the future existed. I also went to class, worked a few jobs, interned, and blah blah blah I was functional. So Valentine's Day was upon us and as most of my friends were single and sad about it, we all decided to shun the holiday altogether and spend the evening at California Pizza Kitchen binging on Thai Chicken Pizza and BBQ Chicken Salads. After all, chicks before dicks, amirite?

That morning I woke up and went about my student business and heard no word from any of my friends. That was not surprising- we were all busy doing studenty things and everyone was probably hung over from the obligatory 'tomorrow is Valentine's Day so we should prepare by doing shots' party. But we'd never set a time to meet up or figure out who could drive to such faraway lands as Scarsdale. So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Calls went to voice mail. Texts were unanswered.


Reader, my friends ditched me. On Valentine's Day.

Let me make that more clear in case you don't understand the true gravity of the situation: A single girl was ditched by her friends on the worst possible day of the year.

So I cried. Like, buckets. I don't actually remember this, it just seems like the logical next step. I probably threw some things and also ranted-out loud, to the empty room- about how people are awful and who needs friends anyway and fuck this holiday and so on and whatnot. I also probably destroyed my room looking for candy bars to console myself. Basically, I turned into a Kathy comic. ACKKKK!

BUT THEN I stopped feeling sorry for myself and salvaged the night like the champ I am.

Which brings me to:

Part II: The Best
In which said heroine makes the best of things, gets a little drunk, cuts her hair and finds some dude in her bedroom.

Since my dinner plans were officially ruined and I was on the college student diet of bagels and diet coke, I was both starving and emotional. Finding some trans fats took priority. I headed over to the Pub, which is a crappy student hang out where they serve only burgers and fries and stale popcorn and random sugary juices like V-8 Fruit Fusion that I could pretend were healthy and therefore an acceptable meal replacement. If I wasn't going to have a classy meal at CPK, I was going to live it up, goddammit. So I ate my weight in curly fries while pretending I had scholarly reading to do that was DEFINITELY more important than some lousy couples holiday. Except you know what is awful about college students? The fact that they are willing to spend Valentine's Day making out over veggie burgers in their college cafeteria. And you know what is awful about artsy college students? That they think it is acceptable to treat every room as if it is their own goddamn poetry reading. YES THERE IS A POETRY READING IN THIS STORY. Clearly this plucky heroine had to get the hell out of there and figure out how to salvage the evening.

So here's how I did that: I rented All About Eve, drank a big gulp of Sprite and Peach Schnapps (shut up, I am awesome) and gave myself bangs because, why not. And also, fuck hair! Already this night had turned all sorts of fabulous.  There I was, playing with my newly chopped bangs and reciting Bette Davis's monologues in front of the mirror when suddenly my bedroom window flew open and some random guy jumped into my room.

What's this you say? A romantic development?! NO. YOU WISH.

It was some guy who was trying to surprise his girlfriend with two dozen roses but whose girlfriend lived on the 3rd floor and he didn't want to ruin the surprise by making her come to the door to let him in. So you know, he climbed into the building through a complete stranger's window. We liberal arts majors are not known for our logic. Now normally, I would have been mortified by this. After all, I was wearing some pretty unattractive sweat pants and I probably had dried ketchup and residual bang hair all over my face. But it turned out alright because said dude thanked me by giving me a few of his girlfriend's roses (hey, I'll take sloppy seconds) and also he forgot the box of Russell Stover chocolates he meant to bring her. So I ate them all. Even though I MUCH PREFER Vosges or Max Brennan or even Godiva. Russell Stover is like the Walmart of chocolates.

So in the end, I had a great Valentine's Day- I watched one of my favorite movies and some guy brought me roses and chocolates (hey, I'll phrase it how I want to phrase it, Bitch).

And you know who didn't have a good Valentine's Day? All my friends because it turns out they spent the day dealing with Bridesmaids-style food poisoning and forgot to call me.