Yes we all know it’s Valentines Day. Even though I try to deny it, it’s impossible to escape. I’m partial to calling it the Hallmark of all Hallmark holidays. Even Wikipedia has ear marked it as such here.

But who doesn’t appreciate a good Valentine, eh?

I was eating lunch today in between classes at my University when a girl comes up to me and says, “Happy Valentines Day!”. She gently placed a card in front of me with a very endearing smile. “How sweet!”, I thought. I picked up the card, read it, and realized that it was an advertisement for the Lutheran Campus Ministry. My ego was deflated.

Later in the afternoon, I was reading a paper in the hallway before class started. A guy I recognized came up to me and handed me a tiny little manila folder. He put a cute little red heart on it and bellowed, “Happy Valentines!” The folder was sealed and I stuck it in my pocket after graciously accepting it (it’s a bit awkward opening a card from a random person while they’re watching, yes?). I thought that perhaps my luck had changed! Maybe he’s admired me in class for the last 6 weeks and was waiting until this very day to reveal his true feelings. Ahhh… swoon. (Even it was a silly boy.)

In all honesty, I had forgotten about it until after I got home. But I just ripped it open and it says:

“You are worth my life… Love Jesus.”

dangit!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Bah humbug.

What did Tina call Vegas? A suckhole? yeah. That’s kinda what I’m feeling about the holiday season right now. It sucks you dry emotionally, financially, physically…

I can’t stand the traffic and the way everyone is so pissed off and in a rush to buy “Christmas Cheer”. It’s especially painful driving a stick shift where every brake light makes my teeth grind in anger. Poor little clutch foot. Instead of having “trench foot” like in the army, I think I have “clutch foot”.

Last week I had to special order something from a store (in the mall of all places!!) which took about a week to finish. When I was standing in line I overheard a clerk telling a customer that they had lost his order and they would have to do it all over again. I smugishly smirked inside and thought, “Sucks to be that guy.” Welllll….. today when I went to pick mine up THE SAME CLERK sheepishly told me the same thing. She looked and looked and looked but couldn’t find my order. I was a bit ticked but felt the weight of my thoughts from the week before in my head. Damn you karma! I couldn’t help but feel like I deserved it for not feeling an ounce of sympathy for Mr. Anonymous Customer the week before.

On top of it all, I’m STILL (damnit, still!!) calling around for apartments. Today I left 6 messages about 6 different apartments. Can you guess how many called me back? One. A little old lady who told me the apartment was already taken. Crap.

So, here I am wishing the holiday was already over. Even with my glumness I went to watch a Christmas movie of sorts called… um… The Nativity Story, or something like that. It was painfully “Ben Hur-ish” in it’s fairly amateur filming way. But rather than get any sort of sentimentality for the “true meaning” of Christmas, I ended feeling nostaligic about Israel. I could recognize scenes from the Israeli countryside, Israeli and middle eastern accents, familiar eyes, Hebrew words. I left the theater with a heavy heart not for the baby Jesus, but for the land he was born in.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Teeny tiny miniscule cars. They will never ever ever ever make it in America. At least not in my lifetime.

What would you say to the guy/gal driving down the highway in one of these bad boys? Snicker? Openly point and laugh? Shout obsenities to the likes of, “Holy %*$. I could crush that &*^$# with the tip of my &*#!” Maybe all of the above?

But the truth is that American’s are threatened by small spaces. We were born in the massive expanses of our amazing country. We like to stretch out, scratch ourselves, and yawn in comforting space. We wanna jump in our cars and drive for hours in any direction we damn well please without the worry of being crushed by a semi. We want room in our cars to flick people off and have sex in the back if we so feel inclinded.

It’s not that we don’t care about the environment. We do. We understand that these cars get something like 5 billion miles to the gallon. We know that they’re perfectly suited for our ever increasing global temperature… for the icecaps that are melting… for the life that is draining out of mother earth with every oil well.

But American’s are vain.

Even after highschool, we still care about image. A vast majority of us wouldn’t be caught dead driving one of these cars. Why? Because they’re dorky. Bottom line. American’s are assholes like that. We wanna stretch out and look cool while we’re at it.

So, while I was in Israel, I saw a handful of these “Smart Cars”. I squealed like a little girl every time! If they had a parking lot with a bunch of these little cars lined up as a tourist attraction, I would have totally paid money to see it. ESPECIALLY if they had someone driving it in little Smart Car circles or something. Just add a roller coaster, some Mickey Mouse ears, and I think there may be some real money in a place like that.

Popularity: 18% [?]