Valentine

Everyone complains about the commercialization of holidays . . . how they used to be sacred, and now they're only about retail giants meeting their quarterly sales goals. I know I sure do when it comes to Christmas. And Easter. But Valentine's Day doesn't bother me so much.

Because I was raised by the most practical of parents. The "don't get up from the table until your plate is clean" parents. The "why would you want toys for your birthday when you could have new socks and underwear?" parents. Okay, that might be a little bit of stretch. Maybe.

So a day that is devoted to all things romance and that involves the typical gift from a man to a woman being the most impractical of all things, flowers (gasp!), I kind of enjoy a day of not being the most sensible, unromantic person that I usually am.  (I mean come on, it took EVERYTHING in me not to bring all the contents of my childhood bedroom to goodwill after my mom brought them down to Grand Junction for me. Who needs that stuff anyway?) 

And, besides, my 14-year-old students need a reason for more drama in their lives, right?