Deepish Thoughts pre-Valentine’s Day

I have successfully been ignoring Valentine’s Day for years, usually with no argument from whichever significant other I was with at the time. I think the last time I really celebrated it was in high school, when I gave my boyfriend-of-4-months homemade cookies with M&Ms and he gave me…a Victoria’s Secret gift card for $30.

This did not go over well with my family.

My grandma actually asked me if the idea was that I was supposed to buy something sexy and then try it on for him. There’s a conversation I never want to have again. Just writing that makes me cringe, in fact. And, in his defense, he was pretty clueless about the entire exchange of gifts. The gift card had been his mother’s suggestion. I could see the inappropriateness of it even then, and the whole thing was awkward between the two of us. He sort of threw the card at me and I think I ended up buying some lotion with it.

Another charming thing my grandma once said to me when I was a sophomore in high school, since we’re on the subject: I was wearing a different boyfriend’s letter jacket, feeling oh-so-cool, and she looked me up and down and said “What did you have to do to get that?”

It’s so endearing when your grandma thinks you’re a total floozy and isn’t afraid to talk about it.