On Cabell Day, it is also customary to buy me some shoes.
So today I was buying candy for my classes in honor of V-Day–an endeavor which led to me phoning my father from the Walgreen’s candy aisle to ask him if sodium lactate (Jolly Ranchers) is an animal product, which it apparently is probably not if it’s in commercial food products (they use bacteria to get it out of carbs) but we’re still not sure about calcium stearate (Sweet Tarts–I have some vegan students, okay? and it might be derived from hydrogenated vegetable oil but it might not)–and I probably went a little overboard because, you know, I love holiday candy and I love Valentine’s candy more than most, and if I feed it to my students it will not cause me to gain weight.
Anyway, so I was hauling my candy (in addition to vegan options, I got Dove Promises, Reeses peanut butter cups, and Butterfinger and Nestle Crunch hearts for the misguided milk chocolate lovers–peanut butter cups are exempt from this criticism because PEANUT BUTTER) back to the office, and suddenly, I had a Valentine’s epiphany.
Valentine’s Day has not been an awesome milestone in my life ever. When not actively and crushingly disappointing, it has been uneventful and vaguely depressing in an annoying way. But today, carrying a giant bag of shiny pink hearts* and shit, I realized something.
Valentine’s Day is based around:
- Candy
- Hearts
- Stuffed animals
- Stationery
- The color pink
That’s right. That romance/couples/enduring love crap is INCIDENTAL. It is basically CABELL DAY. It’s practically my second birthday.
The students seemed to enjoy this revelation, although possibly they were just happy about the candy. Now if only they’d do the reading.
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*The one thing I don’t like about Dove Promises is that the heart-shaped Valentine’s version are wrapped in red and gold for the dark chocolate, and pink and silver for the milk. I dislike milk chocolate. But I want pink and silver wrappers! Thus far I have not actually switched to buying a kind of chocolate I don’t actually like to achieve this. But it causes me emotional distress.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Well, my Valentine’s day present to MY students is that I’m showing up today for a change. Since the university has been closed all week due to ice storm and ensuing three-day power outage in most areas, they should just be glad to get me.
February 14th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
PETA says Sweet Tarts = vegan. Check it: http://www.petakids.com/candy.html
Oh, and by the way, hi! Long time no e. I’m glad we both went with pink themes for our websites. Tres fetching. I’m told it is “in.”
February 14th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Happy Cabell Day, then!
February 15th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
You are SO right.
I mean, I have the romance/couple/enduring love stuff. No complaints on that front. But I didn’t get a THING for Valentine’s Day. Not even a card*. (The boy did buy me a bar of chocolate, but he foolishly handed it over the day before, thus losing the opportunity to pretend he did it because of the day.)
I don’t know if the UK has special Valentine’s chocolate, actually. We’re not so into the whole presents thing, although if shoes is to become a tradition, I would never decline…
You are a very good TA buying sweeties for your class. I hope they appreciate you. (My mother also swears by this as a teaching technique.)
*OK, normally he makes me one, but has been too ill lately. I’m letting him off.