The Staff of Make it Missoula asked our Bloggers to chime-in for Valentine’s Day. We hope you’ll find of each of them inspiring in their own unique way. Be sure to check out our Valentine’s Day Contest. In 25 words or less, tell us of your most memorable Missoula Valentine and you’ll be entered into a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to The Red Bird Restaurant.
By CC THE TRAINED MONKEY
With Valentine’s Day looming, the folks at Make It Missoula thought it would be a good idea for their bloggers to submit a romantically themed piece to show off our “softer side.”
I had to chuckle because everyone who knows me knows I’ve been dead inside for years. Valentine’s Day plays as much a role in my life as hitting myself in the head with a hammer does. It’s bad enough just being a regular loser 364 days of the year, I gotta be SUPER loser on that day.
I liked Valentine’s Day much better when I was a kid. It was all-inclusive. Nobody got left out. We had a little party at our school. Everyone got a cupcake and a glass of pop and a few candy hearts that said “Be mine.” Everyone decorated an old shoe box with strips of red and pink tissue paper and everyone put a card in it – because you had to give everyone in the class a card. It was very cut and dried, and yet, even back then, there were politics involved.
Nowadays, there’s a wide variety of Valentine’s Day cards on the market for your kids to choose from: Disney Princesses, comic book heroes, reality show celebs. Back then, there was one box. In the whole United States of America, they manufactured one uniform box of Valentine’s Day cards. Every single box had the exact same 3×4 cards in them.
Here’s where the politics came in. Since we all knew what cards we were dealing with, each card came to have a specific value. Some were higher than others. The kitty, the puppy and the rabbit where way high up on the food chain. If you got any of those cards, you knew the person who gave them to you really liked you. Maybe even loved you.
But, if you got the skunk…
That’s right, the skunk – the death card of the pack. It was a cute skunk. It even had a flower in its hand. But it was just lipstick on a pig. There was no disguising the true meaning behind that card – I think you have cooties.
Now, in every class there’s always that one kid, he has many aliases: Paste Eater, Fart Face, Geek Monster, but he’s all the same guy. Or girl. Every year that kid had a box full of skunk cards and one nice one from the teacher, who felt a little sorry for him – not a lot, just a little ‘cuz, seriously, there was something wrong with that kid.
But I wonder, even though that guy was weirder than a bowl of chicken lips, were his feelings hurt by all the skunks we gave him, or was he just happy to be included? If he’s bitter about it to this day, I would just like to say to him, “Weird Kid, I’m sorry I gave you all those skunk Valentines. But you have to concede you were pretty freakin’ weird. Nonetheless, karma has come back to haunt me for what I did to you. You will be happy to know that no one sends me Valentine’s Day cards, not even ones with a skunk on them. If you would like to return the ones I gave you, I would gladly accept them – mostly on account of they’ll be worth money someday when I’m famous, but you don’t need to know that.”
Well, now that that weight has been lifted off my shoulders, maybe my luck will change. And, if you don’t have a Valentine this year, my wish for you is that your luck will change too. See, there it is, my soft side. Happy now?
Happy Valentine’s Day
CC the Trained Monkey
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BIO: Carol Chrest is a bitter old spinster living in Los Angeles. When she’s not working ridiculous hours at her cruddy day job, she writes screenplays. She drinks.
I sooo remember the Paste Eater (alias: Sharpie Sniffer). I always felt bad for him, but yeah, he got the skunk or lizard valentines. Thanks for the LOLs, CC!
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I guess the guy that got all the skunk cards in our class was called “the booger eatin moron”. Funny thing is…he’s one of the more successful business men in Missoula now. Guess the joke was on us! LOL!
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Happy Single Awareness Day! I’ll send you a cute little puppy card
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Excellent! And you can give me the diamond necklace that accompanies it this summer when I come home.
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CC;
What is your cruddy day job? Are you doing stand up? Holy Shinto you’re funny. I certainly hope you are at the reunion this summer cuz seeing you will be a high point for sure.
I have always been a fan of your writing and I”m so happy you are blogging for MIM. Now I can read your stuff and not worry about responding. Ha! Seriously, reading your blogg is the healthiest vice I have. Keep it coming baby… just please don’t mention my crazy crushes on men who would never love me in return… especially that crazy crush I had on Craig Zannon my senior year. I miss you! Lets talk soon!
Beth
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Betheroo, you realize EVERYONE can read this, right? Including Craig Zannon.
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He Can?? Thats right! Everyone is reading your Blogg!
See you this summer!
Oh Well, It’s time he knew how I once felt about him.! (as if my showing up in his dorm room to ” interview someone I admired for a school project” wasn’t clue enough. The truth is, at 6’6″ he was really the only guy I knew who was taller than I was. )
You wanna know what I wore to the interivew? I wore those goofy gold bib overalls I always wore to school when Sentinel played Hellgate. Sort of like the cool white ones you have on in the picture above , only mine were an obnoxious yellow that resembled our school colors. Of course I wore the purple shirt with “Betharoo” across the back. Sooooo Sexy! I thought for sure that was the magical outfit that would win him over. The outfit that would convince him that even though he was a senior in college and I was a senior in highschool( no… not a 5th grader) he should be dating me. I thought I was smokin’ in that outfit. Good grief. It’s no wonder that I only went to Sadie Hawkins once the whole time I went to Highschool. (with the other love of my life… he who must not be named…and thank you my eyes were closed in the picture. Does it get more mortifying than that? Big grin on my face…. eyes closed.) I love catching up this way via your blogg. I promise, no more!
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You remembered me, I loved those cards and I STILL have most of them. Therapy has helped over the years, but your blog has erased the pain…..unless it was the booger eater and not me that your talking about, he was a sicko. He liked you too.
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No, Weird Kid, I was talking about you. Booger Eater and I worked it out years ago.
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Ahhh yes, the reason why my Mom saved shoe boxes……the cutting and taping of cards with notes of illrelevency. Then struggling to carry the carp home so Mom could see that I might have had friends that she did not know about….25 words or less……Make sure you never forget she is special.
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