Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day, how I hated it. I was always wishing it would happen on a weekend when I didn’t have to deal with people at all, but that year, a Tuesday. You can’t even fake a weekend illness to get out of Tuesday. So, off to work I went, to deal with the imbeciles.

Right off the bat flowers on my desk. Not nice ones either, all gone by and getting smelly. I knew they were from Alice who thought that my hating Valentine’s Day was absurd. “Who knows who might be thinking of you, and wishing you would think of them?” she had just said the day before. I told her if someone was really thinking of me they would leave me out of Valentine’s Day! Hence these rotten flowers from her. I must admit, they made me laugh.

Caught off guard actually laughing, a voice came from behind me making me jump a mile. “Who did that to you? Let me guess, Alice, right? She knows you so well,” and he laughed too.

Whirling around, there was Simon Bell, who behind his back we called Ding Dong. Come on, it was funny! Though I admit, I didn’t really know him at all. As he walked to his own desk, he looked back and said, “See you at lunch?” and I said, “Sure,” before I could even stop myself.

Suddenly I was seeing him in a different light. He got the joke, he knew Alice was my friend, he even seemed to know I hated Valentine’s Day. Suddenly he became a real person in my life.

And that’s why Valentine’s Day is special to me. Thirty-six years later, we’re still each other’s Valentine. Life can be very funny, and love, apparently, even more so!

Happy Valentine’s Day!