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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mandy Wichert. I think mangos are better than candy and I believe, if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’m talking about the best Valentine’s Day ever and how your experience can be shaped by taking on a fresh perspective.
Here’s a fun fact about Valentine’s Day: Teachers will receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets. 220,000 is the average number of wedding proposals on Valentine’s Day each year.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
In February, 2001, I got into a discussion with a friend over lunch who revealed that he hated Valentines day. At the mere mention of Valentine’s Day his eyes rolled back into his head and he nearly wretched. He expounded on the cliché nature of the overly-commercialized holiday and could literally talk for hours about how it was created as a machine to fund greeting card companies and make everyone feel bad for not buying someone candy or flowers. He also did not care for the fact that people felt unloved or uncared for if they were not on the receiving end of a Valentine. Immediately I realized my new mission, which was to show him the error of his ways and reveal to him, that even HE could have fun on Valentine’s day. Read More…
I wasn’t a huge proponent of Valentine’s Day myself, but I did enjoy the thrill of a sweet surprise, being able to gift someone unexpectedly and also the always true….proving someone wrong, just because I thought I could. So, determined to prove my to my friend that celebrating Valentine’s Day could in fact be fun, I informed him that this year, whether he wanted to or not, he would be celebrating his favorite over-commercialized holiday, because I was going to be giving him a Valentine. I talked it up a lot and made sure he knew to expect something fun, and too big to stuff in a backpack. Since we regularly met at lunch, he understood this to mean that he would be lugging something large and most-likely adorned in hearts around for the entire campus to see. I think I may have seen a faint glisten in his eye at the idea of a fun surprise, but his scowl was determined to keep it his own secret.
I immediately set to work to create the largest, dare I say….”cutest” Valentine’s Day box ever made. A large multiple stacked box robot covered with aluminum foil, fitted with floppy vacuum duct arms and legs, and pipe cleaner antennae adorned with large foam hearts on top. The robot also had a large heart button that opened a compartment cut into his chest to reveal the 120 children’s valentines inside personally addressed to him. I also had purchased tickets to a concert for a band that we both loved. I tucked the ticket inside the robot’s chest along with the enormous collection of valentines, and waited for Valentine’s Day to arrive.
The week leading up to Valentine’s Day, my friend informed me that two could play at this game and that he would in fact, outdo me for Valentine’s Day. He did not want to be outdone, so he decided to play along. This made the entire day even more fun!
So, Valentine’s Day he gave me a new meeting place. There was a fancy room on the campus of Oklahoma State called “The French Lounge.” It was full of large provincial furniture with delicate legs and fancy rugs and settees, along with a large grand piano. The room also had beautiful picturesque windows overlooking the campus courtyard and was a nice quiet place to go on occasion to get away from the campus rush. I felt like it was kind of an odd place for us to meet, but went along with the plan.
I pushed the large door open with my foot, because my hands were occupied by the large, attention-grabbing robot I was lugging around. Then I saw my friend sitting at a beautifully decorated table next to one of the large windows, complete with stemmed glasses, (unlit candles, because candles weren’t really allowed on campus) and a table cloth. He pulled two Tupperware containers out of his backpack, one for me and one for himself. He had made us both parmesan chicken from scratch, complete with homemade marinara and asparagus with lemon sauce. He had also timed our meeting so that the food was still piping hot.
On top of the container he placed a card that he had created and printed himself. It was a long involved joke about a sheep and a mechanic named “Happy Val” and ended with a question about what happened to Happy Val’s slim jim? The answer: “Happy Val lent Ty’s stay to ewe. Then asked “Will ewe be my Valentine?” (spelled ewe) Pretty clever, right? He had written some things inside that made me laugh and then things got pretty serious….as this turned into our first “official date”. How’s that for cliché?
After our fantastic lunch I handed him his robot, and listened to him exclaim about the hundred valentines inside it’s chest. He thanked me and then told me that he thought he had bested me. I shrugged it off, knowing that he would soon find the ticket to the concert for the appropriately named band, “The Promise Ring.” Once he discovered the ticket he was shocked and excited. That ended up being our second official date. Now we’re married and have three kids. Yes, my SILY friends, that person was none other than Clint Wichert. Valentine’s Day still isn’t something we take overly seriously in our house, but we do smile at each other knowingly as it rolls around each year. I think we both won in the end.
So, What Did We Learn?
Challenging old ideas can be beneficial and even fun. You never know what good things can come just from pushing past your boundaries and allowing yourself to experience something from someone else’s perspective. By Clint allowing me bring him in on the fun that could be had on Valentine’s day, we both pushed each other to focus on creating a special day for one-another. The excitement, build-up and preparation for the day was almost as much fun as the actual day itself.
Did I change his disdain for the holiday? I think I did at least a little. I think this also led us on a path of creating ways to surprise one-another in the small things in our daily lives at home now. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Routine doesn’t have to be routine. The way things have always been done doesn’t have to be the way things are done in the future. Status quo can be improved. By challenging his perception of a broken commercialized holiday, both of our lives grew a little brighter that Valentines Day.
I’m Mandy Wichert and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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