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So then, you were to place your order form with your money in a locked box in the hallway. Your cookies would be made to order and then your message attached. The committee would come around from classroom to classroom to hand out the cookies that were ordered for whomever. Every year from Kindergarten to 4th grade, I would dread that moment. I would watch the popular skinny girls get mounds of cookies and the boys would get just as many. It's not the cookies in general I wanted but just to be accepted and thought of. Even the teacher would get a stash of her own from various students. When those people had finished handing out the cookies to all who was in my room, they had 'extras' available for whoever didn't get one. The teachers had to make sure that all had one so that no one was left out even though one wasn't ordered for you. I was the only girl who never got one. It was as if in slow motion I would watch the teacher grab a cookie off the tray and make her way down the isle to my desk with all eyes on me with the other kids laughing, whispering and pointing at me. Even though the teacher would smile at me, I could see a look in her eyes that even she thought it was pretty pathetic. I have never forgotten that look. I can still see it today. This happened with every class with every teacher with every year through my 4th grade. For 5th and 6th grade, I got smart. I would take that form and go straight to my room when I got home. I would fill it out and order myself 3 cookies. I would make my handwriting messy and all slanty like a boy's so it wasn't obvious that it was me doing the form for myself. I would put messages down like, "Your secret admirer", "I really like you", "From: Me'. I would break open my piggy bank and make $3.00 in change and seal it all in an envelope. The next day, I would take it to school and put it in my pants pocket making sure that it wouldn't jingle with the sound of coins with all my might. I would ask to be excused to go to the bathroom. This, I knew, would be the best time to put the envelope in the box as all were in class and no one would be in the hall. I would walk down the hall, palms sweating and heartbeat racing. I would watch over my shoulder as if I was about to be tagged by the enemy. I one swift move I would drop my envelope in the box and make my way to the bathroom and wait there for approximately 2 minutes so it appeared I had actually gone to where I had asked in the first place. Now all I had to do was wait for the cookies to be delivered. I would day dream about how all those girls would react when I got my cookies. Thoughts of being able to gloat and not be the laughing stock when the teacher gave me that 'consolation' cookie. When my cookies were delivered in 5th grade, it seemed as if no one really cared. But when my little scheme was done in 6th grade it was completely different. I had gotten my cookies delivered. The same as year last. I had left the cookies on my desk and went to get my box filled with valentine cards. These were mandatory valentines, not by choice. Everyone in the class had to get a valentine from everyone else. When I had come back, my cookies were on the floor and smashed. The girls were laughing and snickering in there little group. I bent over to pick up the mess and a comment rang out to me in these exact words, "See, I told you she didn't need those cookies...just look at the size of her ass." My eyes had welled up with tears and I fought with all my might to not break down in front of them or otherwise they would have 'won'. I ignored the comment and went on with my business cleaning up the cookies that they had smashed, for what seemed like was my broken heart, and put them in the trash. Thank God there was only 3 minutes left to go until the bell would ring before the day was over.
As I progressed to junior high and high school, there too Valentine's Day never failed to sock me in the gut. The office would be filled with balloons and flowers and boxes of candy that crushes had ordered for their unknowing parties and young sweethearts for one another. With each passing hour, the office would seem to overfill with red and pink items. It smelled like the greenhouse itself when passing by. At the end of the schoolday, the last half hour was used for the office assistant to read the names of the girls who got deliveries and to pick them up in the office. Name after name was called but never mine. I remember feeling jealous when Jodi's name was called. How lucky was she to be loved on Valentine's Day?
Still to this day, at work, I see woman after woman getting deliveries and they get all giddy. Oh he loves me so much, oh we're going out tonight, oh yes he's got an evening planned for me...blah de blah de blah. I am happy for them, I really am... they are lucky to have someone. I just can't bring myself to like that day, not even one little bit. You always hear of women being scorned by their men...well I'm a woman scorned by a holiday. |
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