Vamlumtime

Oh, the Valentine's season! It's a wonderful time when love is in the air and goodwill is felt by all men... except for those who fail to get their special someones Valentine's gifts.

True life story: after I woke up at 3:30 in the afternoon on Valentine's day, I set out on a quest to find daisies for my special someone. I didn't have a whole lot of places to choose from since I was out of town, but I did the reasonable thing and started my quest by hitting up the local Wal-mart. No dice. They had some daisies there, but they looked pretty shoddy and were all smooshed together like floral sardines. So I went up the street to Aldi, which apparently is a great place to find flowers. There, next to the checkout line, I found dozens of bouquets of assorted flowers; each arrangement was marked down to $1.99. Heck yes. I found myself internally laughing at all of the lame boyfriends who were getting their last-minute, cheap-skate, convenience store flowers for their ladies, but then I realized that I was, in fact, doing exactly that.

I took my prize petals and headed on my merry way, stopping at the Taco Bell with the sign that read, "Fine Dine with your Valentine," because nothing says romance like a burrito supreme. After grabbing a bite to eat and a plastic cup to serve as a vase, I went back to a friend's house to arrange my buds. I grabbed the fake roses that I had bought a few days earlier - the cheesiest I could find - with the words, "I love you," embossed on the petals, and set out to arranging them into a single bouquet: trimming, tying, and loving my little flowers to death, being careful to preserve the $4.99 price tag from my fake roses.

It turned out to be quite a nice little bouquet, with a price tag of under ten dollars. And you know what? She loved it. Because what people care about is not what you have the means or initiative to buy them, but the fact that you know what they like and you take the time to deliver it to them in a personal way. Happy Valentine's day... one day late.