Thank God it’s over!

I’ve hated Feb. 14 ever since I was a four-eyed geek with no hope of ever having a boyfriend to fondle in the lunch room. And even when I wasn’t a four-eyed geek — and I could get boyfriends I never managed to have one on Valentine’s Day.

I was a hideous girlfriend, which karmically explains how I ended up with Jerod — Mr. Romance, if romance is snoring on the couch with King of the Hill or Moonshiners on television. I gave up on champagne and candlelight many, many years ago. Something in the way Drunk Jerod vomited in the lobby at the Olive Garden on our first dress-up date told me I shouldn’t hold my breath for any fantastic gestures with flowers and jewelry and bubble bath.

Romance is overrated. I like the cotton grandma panties that come in packs of 20 at Costco. I like sweatpants and hoodies and a bed all to myself.   The highlight of Valentine’s 2012 was Lily’s classroom party, which I — being a room mom — contributed to with homemade sugar cookies and pink buttercream frosting. If it sounds simple — it should have been — it wasn’t.   Much like I’m not the kind of woman who wears pretty underwear and receives pretty “I-love-your-panties” roses on Valentine’s Day; I’m not the kind of mother who puts together beautiful party activities for her children. I try, but I fail. The cookies turned out — sort of. Ashlyn took a couple of bites of one and handed it back to me with a sort of disgusted scowl.  

“I no like,” she said shaking her head.

Lily was more diplomatic.

“I think something’s missing,” she suggested. “They don’t have much flavor.”

I told her the frosting would take care of that — sugar cookies are supposed to be boring.

The frosting tasted very good, but it was rather stiff and tricky for the kids to spread on their cookies with plastic knives — a quarter of the class including Lily opted out of the activity.

So I returned home with a lot of cookies and buttercream frosting, and I spent most of the evening in the bathroom with what I assume was butter poisoning.