Valentine's Day - Grand or Grim?

Your feelings about this day depend entirely on your love life. When I was a kid, we decorated white paper bags and put them on a shelf in the classroom and everyone put a valentine in everyone else's bag, whether you liked them or not. A strange ritual for prepubescents on a day designed for lovers.

In middle school it became a public test of your attractiveness to the opposite sex. Just what you need at the most vulnerable time of your life. It made for a miserable and anxious day for virtually every student in the school – faculty members likely went home with hormone poisoning just from breathing the air. I can only imagine how gay and lesbian students dealt with it.

As adults, if you're in a relationship you're happy with, you're cool. If you're not, this day sucks. It also sucks for those in relationships with difficult people who expect the day to be perfect and mope for days if it isn't. I was in a relationship like that once and I dreaded Valentine's Day and her birthday more than my yearly colonoscopy.

Whatever VD means to you (pun intended), I hope you're well today. Here are a couple of cartoons on the subject that may give you a smile.