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Valentine's Day writing assignment
Posted by Jacquie Bee
on
9:12 AM
Hello, hello!
Last night I went to my first writer's meetup group! I joined this group a long, long time ago but I could never summon the courage to actually attend a meeting. The group meets monthly and everyone reads a piece (500 words max) that they wrote based on that month's theme.
It's weird, I have performed on many stages in my lifetime so you wouldn't think that I would be nervous reading 500 words to 8 random strangers. But OH. MY. GOD. I was seriously trying to catch my breath and keep the paper from shaking while I read. The theme was 'A Valentine's Day Hate Story' (a tale of woe). Here's what I wrote. (Note: This story is mostly true; however, some creative license was taken to up the drama quotient.) Enjoy!
Many high schools celebrate the holidays with ‘grams of some kind. Santa-grams, turkey-grams, bunny-grams—you name the occasion and I’ll bet there is a corresponding ‘gram. The idea is, you buy a holiday gram, usually some kind of candy or baked good, and then the treat is delivered to the recipient during class. For some it’s a coronation or affirmation of their teenage royalty. For others, it is an exercise in shame.
In 1991, on Valentine’s day, the candy-gram committee turned up in my history class to deliver confections to a handful of lucky (and mostly popular) people. Much to my surprise, there was also one for me. Cautiously, I went to the front of the room where someone dressed as cupid handed me a heart-shaped sucker. I looked at the little card attached and read the name—my name. The spelling was slightly off but people have always had trouble with that. And next to the word from were the words your secret admirer. I froze. Could this be? Was it possible? Someone admired me secretly!
I gathered my girlfriends to show them. We giggled, we speculated, and we went to our next classes. I spent the better part of the day sighing wistfully and wondering who my unnamed suitor was. I considered who I would ask to be my maid of honour and wondered what my new last name might be. Floating from class to class, I glowed at the thought of someone finding me special enough to send me a secret ‘gram.
My last class of the day was typing. I liked this class because my friend Abbey and I would type each other notes instead of doing the practice exercises. It was far more enthralling than typing “See the quick red fox jump over the lazy tan dog” over and over.
About halfway through the class Abbey dropped a note next to my typewriter. It said.
I hate to tell you this but the candy gram was not for you. It was for the other Jacqui. Sorry lady.
It could have been the clickety clack of 25 of my peers typing away but I swear I heard the sound of both my heart and my pride shatter into infinite pieces and scatter across the classroom floor. At some point during the day, while I was gliding through the hallways basking in love’s glow, the secret admirer had approached his potential Valentine to reveal himself. Jacqui without an ‘e’ had not received the candy-gram that was now mocking me from the corner of my desk. It didn’t take long for the sender to deduce that I had ended up with the heart-shaped treat and Abbey was elected to break the news.
After class I went to Jacqui’s locker and gave her the candy-gram. She laughed warmly and thanked me. She was a lovely and sweet girl and it made perfect sense that she would have a secret admirer. We made small talk about how funny this little mix up was how we shared a name save for one letter. But I would have given all of the letters of the alphabet to have been in her shoes that day.
Last night I went to my first writer's meetup group! I joined this group a long, long time ago but I could never summon the courage to actually attend a meeting. The group meets monthly and everyone reads a piece (500 words max) that they wrote based on that month's theme.
It's weird, I have performed on many stages in my lifetime so you wouldn't think that I would be nervous reading 500 words to 8 random strangers. But OH. MY. GOD. I was seriously trying to catch my breath and keep the paper from shaking while I read. The theme was 'A Valentine's Day Hate Story' (a tale of woe). Here's what I wrote. (Note: This story is mostly true; however, some creative license was taken to up the drama quotient.) Enjoy!
Many high schools celebrate the holidays with ‘grams of some kind. Santa-grams, turkey-grams, bunny-grams—you name the occasion and I’ll bet there is a corresponding ‘gram. The idea is, you buy a holiday gram, usually some kind of candy or baked good, and then the treat is delivered to the recipient during class. For some it’s a coronation or affirmation of their teenage royalty. For others, it is an exercise in shame.
In 1991, on Valentine’s day, the candy-gram committee turned up in my history class to deliver confections to a handful of lucky (and mostly popular) people. Much to my surprise, there was also one for me. Cautiously, I went to the front of the room where someone dressed as cupid handed me a heart-shaped sucker. I looked at the little card attached and read the name—my name. The spelling was slightly off but people have always had trouble with that. And next to the word from were the words your secret admirer. I froze. Could this be? Was it possible? Someone admired me secretly!
I gathered my girlfriends to show them. We giggled, we speculated, and we went to our next classes. I spent the better part of the day sighing wistfully and wondering who my unnamed suitor was. I considered who I would ask to be my maid of honour and wondered what my new last name might be. Floating from class to class, I glowed at the thought of someone finding me special enough to send me a secret ‘gram.
My last class of the day was typing. I liked this class because my friend Abbey and I would type each other notes instead of doing the practice exercises. It was far more enthralling than typing “See the quick red fox jump over the lazy tan dog” over and over.
About halfway through the class Abbey dropped a note next to my typewriter. It said.
I hate to tell you this but the candy gram was not for you. It was for the other Jacqui. Sorry lady.
It could have been the clickety clack of 25 of my peers typing away but I swear I heard the sound of both my heart and my pride shatter into infinite pieces and scatter across the classroom floor. At some point during the day, while I was gliding through the hallways basking in love’s glow, the secret admirer had approached his potential Valentine to reveal himself. Jacqui without an ‘e’ had not received the candy-gram that was now mocking me from the corner of my desk. It didn’t take long for the sender to deduce that I had ended up with the heart-shaped treat and Abbey was elected to break the news.
After class I went to Jacqui’s locker and gave her the candy-gram. She laughed warmly and thanked me. She was a lovely and sweet girl and it made perfect sense that she would have a secret admirer. We made small talk about how funny this little mix up was how we shared a name save for one letter. But I would have given all of the letters of the alphabet to have been in her shoes that day.
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