The Importance of a Valentine-or 9

This memory is one of my Grandmama Ruth's favorite of me. You know how Grandmamas tend to retell the same stories over and over? Well this is one of her classics about me.

My parent's had gone out of town so Grandmama Ruth had come to stay with Sarah Margaret, Dennis, and me. I was in first grade at the time. It was the week of Valentine's day and my class was going to have a party on Friday. (Side note: elementary school parties are the best. It's like the room moms need to show their superiority to the other room moms so they go all out.) We had made little mail boxes to put on our desks out of milk cartons so that we could receive all the wonderful Valentines that our classmates would give us. I feel like everyone harbored that secret fear that their mailbox would be empty on Valentine's Day...or maybe it was just me. Anyway, we decorated our milk cartons with paper hearts and crayon scribbles, they were all so beautiful and anxiously awaiting the cards and candy that would fill them. My teacher, Mrs. Daniels, sent out the class list so that we would know how many Valentines to buy and to make sure we would not forget anyone. Of course my class was too big for one box of Valentine's to be enough, so I had to buy two boxes and have so many left overs. I always wondered what to do with my left over Valentines, but in first grade I found a use for them.

I remember being at the drug store and picking out Valentines with arctic animals on them. The specific card I remember had a penguin on it and it said "You are so chill, Valentine." I loved them. So I laid out all my cards on the table and began the painstakingly slow process of a first grader writing every name in her class. I gave the cute ones to my best friends and the ugly ones to the people I didn't really like, or the boys who I thought had cooties. However, there was one boy in particular that I was sure did not have cooties and his name was Cody. So when I was left with nine extra Valentines and no one to give them to, I decided that they should all go to Cody. When Grandmama came in to see if I was finished she noticed the ridiculous number of cards with Cody's name and hearts around it on them. Being a wise woman, she asked me if I really thought that Cody would like me just because I gave him nine Valentines. I said yes, that would make him like me. Well I was right.

The week after Valentine's Day and our class party, Cody was chosen to be Student of the Week. In Mrs. Daniels' class one of the privileges of being student of the week was getting to sit on the big red couch during story time with one friend of your choice. Well every day that week Cody chose me to sit on the couch with him. I could tell it was getting serious when he gave me a ring that he had won in a gumball machine. It was lime green plastic with a shiny silver triangle on top. Unfortunately, before I could even put it on my finger he got embarrassed and threw it behind the couch. I guess that was the end of Caroline and Cody. O well. My nine Valentines were worth it for that one week of story time on the big red couch.

Sometimes people can diminish the importance of a Valentine, but if you think back to your elementary school parties I think everyone will remember how special they felt when they were going through their milk carton mailbox and reading all the little notes people had written. The ones with candy attached were especially exciting. Sometimes it takes nine Valentines just to tell someone how you feel. Grandmama still thinks it was a silly plan.