I think we had all got our carnations delivered during our homeroom period, so at least there wasn't the torturous wait. That must have been awful. I never didn't get any, thanks to that boy. Also, I think my (girl) friends and I used to send them to each other, too. I'm pretty sure that senior year, every girl got a carnation. I don't know if the teachers chipped in, or what. That was more than half my life ago, now.

Thanks for the explanations.

I'm trying to remember if we had anything similar - as in, something that some gets lots of and some may get none. There was the thing before Purim, in which each person brings a package full of goodies to eat, and they're supposed to get exchanged at random (like pulling numbers from a hat), but this meant that each person who brought a package, got somebody else's package. And, of course, not in the least bit connected to anything romantic. Hmm.

We didn't have in-school flowers, thankfully. There were already plenty of opportunities for humiliation.

You were better off, Nilly. Then you never had to deal with the inevitable "Your best friend gets flowers from the boy you will love 4EVA while she's sitting next to you in Algebra."

Or something.

OTOH, candy!

I'd forgotten all about in-school flowers and how completely awful they were.

I think that this has left residual V-Day dislike for me. You spend years with some little hope that something unexpected and extraordinary will happen and it never does.

Yep.

At my school they let florists deliver to the school, it wasn't a fundraiser or anything, and in the last ten minutes before dismissal, they'd summon everyone who'd received a delivery down to pick them up. Which was pretty much just a public announcement of everyone who currently had a boyfriend.

We did rosegrams on Valentine's in high school, but they were mostly for couples so I never got one.

P. and I did our Fancy Dinner Out for V-Day last night and the reservation was 8:30, so all I saw of the Grammies was the opening medley (Gwen Stefani's outfit was NOT RIGHT, but I loved the suits on the Franz Ferdinand and Maroon 5 boys) and, after we got home, "Across the Universe." I turned it off and went to bed when John Mayer won song of the year -- it probably wasn't the worst song nominated, not with Hooobastank in there, but it still bugs me.

I have a teeny sore throat. I am going off to retreive medicinal hot chocolate.

My school did the carnation-o-gram bit. The tacky bouquet was from an actual florist (or grocery store, I don't recall) and was because I'd been bitching about how much I hated the carnation deal after I'd gotten forced into selling them. I suspect I'd been ranting about it for weeks. So my dear, dear friends decided to torment me more.

Today is two years with Bob. Our first date was on V-Day (a bad idea at the time, but makes things awfully efficient now) and his birthday is tomorrow. So I only have to buy one annibirthentines day gift, but I think Bob is getting an iPod.

I only have to buy one annibirthentines day gift

That's just like having a kid near Christmas and combining presents. AKA mean. Buy him three things! I insist upon it.