like a fish needs a bicycle...

v-day

so my normal inclination is to wish everyone a crappy valentine's day. i hate valentine's day. it's one of the most pointless stupidities known to man. i often can't believe seemingly rational, intelligent human beings spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on exaggerated overtures to prove their love and affection for their significant others (or people they hardly know) not on a day or days of their choosing, but on a particular day that hallmark decided they must -- or else they are bad people.

how has everyone been so effectively brainwashed to give commercial industries so much money on one particular made up "holiday?" at least most other lucrative holidays are based on something. christmas, for instance -- Christ definitely wasn't born on december 25, but He was born sometime and so we celebrate that. but why must we senselessly celebrate our love for others on february 14? why can't we do that every day? even if st. valentine did exist and did promote relationship affection, would he really want us to buy into some CEO's brilliant plan to co-opt his name and legacy to make us drop $150 per person on dinner at some mediocre new york city restaurant on one particular night of the year? madness, i tell you, madness.

and just to clarify, i'm not bitter. i never have been. and now, i have wonderful husband, who was previously my wonderful fiance, who was prior to that my wonderful boyfriend. so i've had plenty of love to celebrate, and he's always come up with creative, sweet ways to surprise me. so valentine's day has become just one of many days in the year that he does fantastic things for me -- but it's still a dumb day.

however, this year, i felt the need to write about my valentine's day present, because it's the perfect present. you see, one summer in college, i studied abroad at the university of edinburgh. i fell in love with the city and i had an amazing time. i also brought home a baby blue "university of edinburgh" hooded sweatshirt at the end of the summer -- it quickly became one of my favorites. a few months later, though, i loaned it to a friend one night when she was leaving my place and it was cold outside. the next day, her apartment burned down. it was quite the freak tragedy, and thank God she was totally fine. but my sweatshirt died in the fire. after that, i tried desperately to replace it -- i looked online all over the place, asked my friends who were going back to scotland to visit, etc. but it was nowhere to be found.

of course, greg knew my whole sweatshirt sob story. but a few years had passed since the whole thing had happened, so i had long ago given up and stopped thinking about it. and then... out of nowhere, the night before valentine's day, a packaged arrived that was marked "royal mail." greg gave it to me, as it was apparently my valentine's day present. ...i opened it up, and it was my exact same hooded, baby blue, university of edinburgh sweatshirt. i couldn't believe he'd found it. and i totally fell in love with it all over again. and i wore it on valentine's day. :)

it was really the perfect present. nothing mushy, ridiculously priced, or overly-romantic. instead, it was something i needed and wanted and personally appreciated. so that is the story of my perfect present and near-perfect-husband. happy valentine's day everyone.

Posted by naseem at February 14, 2007 07:46 PM