Valentine’s Day? Bite me.
It looked like a child’s Valentine, a square of red construction paper glued onto a lacy white paper doily. I noticed it on the floor, one edge trapped under the leg of a chair in the coffee shop.
I picked it up and opened it expecting to see something like “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue…signed with X’s and O’s and written in a looping childish scrawl. But that’s not what it said. Instead, I read the words, “You can bite me” printed in ink – by an adult hand - and finished with lots of exclamation points.
At first I assumed it was a kind of naughty little note. A homemade
come-on left on the breakfast table, propped against a glass of orange
juice or coffee cup. Or, perhaps it had been meant for a co-worker, a
secret message left on a desk or handed off under the table in a
meeting. A tease to after-hours fun, or a little corporate groping in
the elevator.
But the more I looked at it, the less sweetness I saw. The words, “You
can bite me” had been practically carved into the paper. I got the
feeling they were written by someone who was angry. Someone whose teeth
had been clenched when she wrote it. Someone who might have preferred
to carve the same message on the forehead of the recipient.
And I was sure it had been written by a woman.
Whoever she was, she was mad. And she had a point she wanted to make.
So, as befitted the day, a lover’s day, she dressed it up in lace and
red paper.
I sat there, holding the little bomb, and tried to imagine who sent it
and who the victim had been. What on earth had he done to deserve what
he got? And how did he feel when he opened the card?
Did he sit there, nursing a Venti double-shot and read the words over
and over again, mulling over how much trouble she was and how tired he
was of her theatrics? Or, did he mentally kick himself, making a
promise right then and there to shape up and show the love.
And what about her? I would give anything to have been a fly on the
wall when that card was made. I could imagine her furiously rummaging
through drawers looking for a pen that wasn’t out of ink and a glue
stick that wasn’t dried and useless. Opening and closing kitchen
cabinet doors, searching for those damned doilies she bought last year
when she had that baby shower for a friend. Then, after scratching the
words across the paper, folding the card and slipping it into an
envelope. An angry Cupid, locked, loaded, target in sight.
Everywhere I look I see Valentines. Most are syrupy and trite. I can’t
help but wonder how many are given under false pretenses, pretty
poetry and sentimental schmaltz when what the sender would like to say
can be summed up in two little words: “Bite me.”
Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance columnist for The Spokesman-Review.
She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons,” and can be
reached at catmillsap@gmail.com