HE said: Be My Valentine?

Though I still firmly believe that St. Valentine was a fee-fee boy, I do have one memorable tale from Valentine’s Day.

I’d like to take you back to Valentine’s Day 1995 in Miss Heffernan’s fourth grade class, where a Young Daniel had a crush on the prettiest girl in class, and she liked him back. She was young, blonde, and Norwegian. Her physique could be described most accurately as “well-developed”, much like the girls Old Daniel has impure thoughts about today.

Unlike Old Daniel, Young Daniel was pure of heart and mind, uncorrupted by puberty and its sin inducing hormones.

A true romantic, Young Daniel decided that Valentine’s Day would be the day to make his move. He turned to the only people he knew could help him get his message of love across: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Young Daniel purchased a box of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Valentine’s cards, and in the blink of an eye Valentine’s Day arrived. Young Daniel’s heart raced as he passed out his Ninja Turtle valentine’s cards.

He scoffed at other girls’ attempts to woo him with their own Valentine’s cards, sending them away in tears, clutching half-hearted Valentine’s wishes from Bebop and Rocksteady.

Then, as his Norwegian beauty approached his desk, Young Daniel reached for the wise, all-knowing Splinter valentine he had been saving for his crush.

Alas, Young Daniel’s innocence may have been his downfall. Had he the knowledge he had today, he may have adorned his crush’s valentine with a smooth line like, “I’ll be over your house after school to watch Saved by the Bell. We’ll make out”, or “You know, you and I could go all the way to second base since you’re the only girl in the entire school besides the teachers that has boobs”.

But, Young Daniel had not mastered the art of the pickup line, and the best Young Daniel could muster on the back of his crush’s Splinter Valentine was: “Come here often?” Young Daniel could not seal the deal.

They say hindsight is 20/20, and I know I should have come up with a better pickup line. It also might have not been the best idea to give my crush a Valentine featuring a cartoon rat. These are lessons everyone needs to learn someday, and I learned them the hard way.