Valentine's Day Massacre, 2007

So I got home from a meet-filled weekend Saturday night and Mommy had a card and a little box of chocolates on the table for me for Valentine's Day. I took it as a joke. Valentine's days haven't gone that well for me over the years, usually because of my own carelessness, like forgetting about the "holiday" entirely or giving a valentine to someone who already has a boyfriend. The latter was more just to humour myself but needless to say it went over like a fart in church because she knew I knew she had a boyfriend and was not impressed at me humouring myself at her expense (Though she didn't expend anything, I walked to her place to give her my card. Maybe she was just a bitch. Ya, that sounds better). But I have to say my senior year of college took the cake for my valentine mishaps. The reason I thought of this is because I still have a gift that somehow made it home from school and still hasn't gotten thrown away yet (You may have noticed it in the Sperry photo, that was when it clicked where the hell that thing came from). I still find this story to be an absolute riot. I may be the only one.

Many of you know I fall in love fairly easily. Not in the sense I meet a lot of people and have a lot of relationships. More in the "Jim Carey character from Eternal Sunshine sense" in that I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention. I fall hard and I fall fast. Only in this case I don't even remember if we even spoke. She sat behind to the right of me in the 100 level Geology course I took my senior year (I sat front row, center. The only time I've ever done this. Be impressed, Mommy). Cake class and I had fun. And I learned far too much about sediment runoff and long shore drift and soil erosion which I still enjoy discussing regularly. It was not quite John Smedley's "Energy and Environment" but Bev Johnson made my close to Bates an enjoyable experience. But now I've drifted off my topic. Back to the program.

SO I had never really spoken to this young lady. She was a first year, I was a senior. I just always thought that dynamic was weird. I don't think anyone else does but for whatever reason I thought this was weird, still think it is. But it was an 8am and it met three days a week and I always dressed like a slob in sweats and hoodies (not athletic hoodies, think homeless; I guess it went with the flow) and she always dressed well as most first year female college students do and every day I would smile at her as she walked by (a friendly smile, if you can believe it. Not the old man creeper smile I shoot at Kathy on the regular) and she would always smile back, a smile which was also warm and friendly. That was enough (I know we actually talked a couple of times concerning a lab or test or something class-related so this may not be entirely true. But if you set the line of "words exchanged: total" at 50 I would bet everything I possess on the under. SO, you get the idea).

A close friend on the track team knew her through other friends informed me she was single-ish (i don't think he ever told me this, I just decided she should be single for this to actually make the slightest bit of sense) earlier in the semester, and we had class on Valentines Day (it was a Wednesday, i think) so I decided I would buy her a Valentine and give it to her after class. Or before class. But at any rate my plan centered around class. She always attended class, I always attended class; this was like clockwork. Seems like a good plan. Almost too good to be true (obvious foreshadowing here but I didn't drop the ball...read on).

So I went to Wal-Mart with a couple of track friends February 13, the one who kind of knew her and my suitemate Sam who reads this and will get a kick out of this story because he thought I was a complete loser at the time (pretty sure he was right, but we all knew that already), and I start shopping for a sweet gift. I was very close to going with the heart-shaped Tony Stewart chocolate tin but my two accomplices convinced me otherwise and instead went with a semi-oversized bear (think 14-16" tall) holding heart and a chocolate rose (I like chocolate roses. I've never had one but I like the idea of them. Much better than actual roses. If they don't make dark chocolate roses then they should). I was all geared up and ready to go.



And then it started snowing. And kept snowing. And kept snowing. And kept snowing. And, yes, it kept snowing and class was canceled because good ol' Bev J couldn't make it into class. Sonofabeesting. Was I really just bested by the northeast winter? What do I do? We didn't have class on Friday for a reason I cannot recall now and even in that case it would have been lame to bring it to class on Friday, two days after Valentine's day. AND we were going on break that Friday so I had to act fast. So I did what any normal person would do in that situation. I asked around and found out what room she lived in so I could hand-deliver this awesomely awesome present. And as luck would have it when I arrived she wasn't in her room. So her roommate opened the door to me, circa 2007, and did not seem impressed.


So it goes without saying word got back to her a random homeless man stopped by her room for no apparent reason (because I obviously wasn't going to just leave the bear with her roommate. It wasn't wrapped because wrapping paper is a waste, and besides that would have just been strange) and so, as anybody would, she obtained my screen name to get to the bottom of this matter. Many of you know Fluff217 was always online from 5th grade onward until college graduation when I cut the cord (after the destruction of 2 hard drives resulting from never shutting down my computer) so I should have been prepared (This may actually be revisionist history. Knowing me, I tracked down her screen name to apologize. But I guess that's neither here nor there). But for whatever reason even I couldn't salvage this awkward situation. She said she thought it was sweet, but I'm a shy guy and thus no words came for a response. She handled it professionally, which I respected. The timing was not right (or something along those lines, I really don't recall). She went home for break, classes ended a month after that and nothing more was ever said of this exchange (or lack thereof, to be more appropriate). A couple of times last year we ran into one another in Merrill and we exchanged pleasantries. And this whole story popped back up in my head each time and made me laugh as she would continue down the hall. And it still does. I don't know why. It probably comes from the fact I still have a bear with a year on the foot like I'm going to some day regift that thing like it's nobody's business. And the thought has crossed my mind, as anyone who knows me would agree.

As I think back, maybe "massacre" was a little too extreme. But while I still think this would have to qualify as a Lemony Snickets, I'll leave it to you to be the judges. Cheers.