This weekend is the "LOVE" weekend. Valentine's Day. I am not a "love" person but I do like Valentine's Day....I love to decorate boxes. And then slip Valentines inside the box. Love it.
And lately, bad choices and how to clean up bad choices has been a huge topic in our home and with my friends. (see F ...the blog prior).
So, in the spirit of love...and in the spirit of making mistakes and bad choices in schools...A repost. The most interesting thing about this Valentine's Day story...I think about it every year on Valentine's Day. Annually.
Feel the love.
I have been blessed in this life to have those "lifetime friends." You know, the ones that call you after you haven't spoken to them in years, and the conversation flows like you saw them yesterday. Those friends that have known you in and out of your life for a long time. Annie is one of those friends.
I have known her since the Kindergarten days, all through school, she was my roomie at WVU and then by chance, she lived down the road from me a tad in North Carolina.
It was the other night, during a late night "porch" phone call that the "fourth grade Valentine's Day incident" came up.
Oh, the Fourth Grade Valentine's Day Incident. Hmm.
Annie still had unanswered questions from that day forty-one years ago. "Remember when we got in trouble in fourth grade over the Valentine's Day party?"
"NO, I didn't get in trouble that day."
We read in the paper that we had the dreaded "new teacher." Ugh. We were so scared.
The first day of school we saw her. A cross between Snow White and Mary Tyler Moore, Miss Mercer was everyone's dream teacher. We were her first class and we loved her. Adored her. She was "the" teacher that we all still talk about.
But as much as we loved her, we LOATHED Danny M. Danny M was the one boy that is in every class ... tall, skinny, dirty teeth, boogers,greasy hair, and shirts buttoned all the way to his neck and dirty fingernails. But, worse than all of this, Danny M. smelled like pee. Not urine, he wasn't old enough, pee. I knew. I sat beside him. Always.
The Valentine's Day party was coming. "The" party of the school year. This of course was way back when you only had two parties per year, Christmas and then Valentine's Day. WE would decorate our boxes when it was too cold or snowy to go out at recess and they were amazing. They were amazing even without Pintrest. Oh, those were the days.
The big day was coming.
I am assuming that the "plan" was developed in the cafeteria. The plan was evil and simple. Nobody was to give Danny M a Valentine. Nobody. Not a one, zilch, zero, nada, no Valentines. It was that simple. Annie, Barb (the perfect twin to the Campbell soup girl), Julie, the whole lot of us and we spread the word.
That night, at the kitchen table, while I addressed my Valentines, my mom learned of the "plan." Linda, my mom, went CRAZY. Not a little crazy, but a 10 on the crazy rector scale. "Oh hell NO", she screamed.
OMG. What was I going to do? I knew she was angry enough to call Miss Mercer and my friends, what would they say? A fourth grade dilemma.
The next day, I slipped my Valentine into Danny M's box. I did it when nobody saw me. He sat beside me so I did it before the party. Done.
And, I slipped in 12 other Valentine's that simply said "guess who?".
Well, Danny M was sooooooo beside himself that he had 12 Valentines that simply said "guess who." He gave the plan away. Miss Mercer had a "feeling" that something was up, checked his box and there were 12 mysterious Valentines plus one with very small handwriting that said "Stephanie". Hmm. Thirteen Valentines in a class of 20 or so.
You can figure out from there. Annie, Barb and the gang got called out, demoralized and they have been carrying this around for 41 years.
"Annie, I gave him a Valentine", I admitted. "And, I took the leftover ones that I had and wrote "guess who" on them because my mom found out and I knew she would kill me."
A confession. After 41 years, the secret to the Valentine's Day Massacre of Danny M who smelled like pee was out.
She was astounded.
"You are kidding?"
"Nope. Linda knew and I knew she would kill me. I knew it was wrong. I didn't want anybody to make fun of me, so I signed my name, microscopically to one and "guess who" on the others. My mom was fine. Danny M was thrilled and wasn't smart enough to do the math and you all never knew."
The bottom line is this, we all screw up occasionally. I have. I have one biggie beside my name and a few not so big beside my name and that is today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?
And, I knew better.
Every time I tried to screw up, even the first time I had sex, there was this little voice tugging on my ear. "Guess who" became the inner voice code name for my mom. My conscience too.
And, your past, whether you want to or not, can and will catch up with you.
And when it does, sometimes it knocks on your heart and says, "Guess who?"
Just hope they give you a Valentine. Happy Valentine's Day.
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