Valentine

  Back at Crayton Elementary School, there was a tradition that every Valentine's Day we would pass out cards to students we liked.  Some kids also gave them to our teachers, but that didn't happen often.  This exercise was supposed to be fun.  The teachers would pass out those wretched candy hearts with sayings on them.  It was supposed to be candy, but they tasted more like chalk.

 Every kid had a small box on their desk with a slot to put the cards into the box.  The girls would come around and put their cards in the boys' boxes, and then the boys would put their cards in the girls' boxes.  The key to both of these groups doing this was that the boys had to close their eyes, when the girls passed out their cards and vice versa.  You weren't supposed to see who had put a card in your box until you opened it.

 When it came time to open the boxes, some kids had a lot of cards, while other kids might have had only a few or maybe just one.  That is what happened to me.  I wasn't one of the studly boys in class that all of the girls liked. Some girls weren't the prettiest in the class, so they might have gotten a few or maybe one.  It was basically a popularity contest.  The other kids saw me as not being very athletic or handsome, so I guess that's why my box wasn't brimming over with cards like some other kids.  They also saw me as being the smart kid in class, since I wore glasses.  

 So, one year, it was obvious that the teachers had talked to one another about the disproportionate way that some kids got more than others, because the teachers required that the girls would give one card to each boy, and the boys would give one card to each girl.  We all knew why.  At least, it made those of us that didn't get many cards to feel good.  The teachers took the status kids out of the equation.  It didn't mean that the popular kids liked us any better by giving us cards.  It just meant that the teachers made them do it.  No love lost between us and them.  The teachers took pity on us unpopular kids.  Even though we all got cards, we were still picked last for games by the other kids.  They wanted to make sure we knew our place.  We did.