Being that yesterday was the superficial Hallmark holiday of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share one of my personal favorite Valentine’s Day memories of several years ago. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first a little about the holiday we all love to hate.
St. Valentine’s Day is a mixture of Catholic historical conjecture and ancient/pagan Roman tradition — par for the course in most major Christian holidays. It seems that the annals of Catholic history has a handful of saints named Valentine — all of them meeting an untimely end by martyrdom. Hell of a way to celebrate our love for each other, no? Celebrate it with a good flogging or beheading, that’s what I always say. What seems more probable is that the Church needed too cook up a pseudo-holiday that coincided with the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia that began on Feb 15. Let it brew for about 1000 years and you have a mysterious amalgamation of traditions that doesn’t make any sense anymore — which is perfect fodder for companies like Hallmark to blow it totally out of proportion. Check out the cool article on History.com.
Now, back to my story. Valentines day, about 4 years ago (give or take a year or two), when Mike and I were still dating, we made dinner reservations at Scotch and Sirloin for some of the best steaks in town. We had a nice little booth, but anybody who’s been to Scotch and Sirloin knows that it’s not really private. The waitress took our drink order and went away. I can’t remember if what I’m about to describe happened before or after cocktails, but I tend to think it happened sans-booze. Here it goes. Mike said something funny, and in my typical flamboyant manner, I threw my head forward laughing. As it came flying forward, my forehead met the edge of my water glass, sending it careening into Mike’s lap, water and all. I HEADBUTTED THE WATER GLASS, people! We had only been there a few minutes and I wanted to crawl under the table and die. To add insult to injury, the dining couple in the booth across from us cringed, and the guy let out a very audible, “Ouch!” as if to say, “Nice going dumb-ass!” The only consolation Mike had for a wet lap is the fact that the napkins there are large red towels. While that was a moment to rival some of my embarrassing ones, ironically, it’s one of the best meals I’ve ever had there. Go figure.
