I think I may be one of those rare “single people” who don’t mind Valentine’s Day. In fact, not only do I not mind, I have an annual tradition set in place since I was 17 years old! It started one fine Valentine’s Day back in 2007 (Yikes I’m getting older O.o). My friends and I were in the local grocery store, walking in like a badass posse strutting our independence because we drove ourselves in my Mom’s Mini-Van. I rocked the shit out of that van back in the day.

My friends and I had planned on going back to my house and baking a crap ton of delicious treats while watching a movie. As we were getting ready to leave the grocery store, I happened upon a rack of movies. It was there that I found THE Valentine’s Day movie of a lifetime. I picked up The Departed and thought to myself “I have no clue what this movie is about, but for the sake of looking cool, I’m going to go with this one.” Yes friends, I picked a violent Boston mob film to watch on Valentine’s Day. The ridiculous part was, that it went well! I thoroughly enjoyed the film, as did my friends. Thus a tradition was born.

Fast forward 4 years, and I found myself carrying out my beloved tradition at college in Flagstaff. I invited my friends over for dinner, treats, and a super badass film. I was particularly excited because a certain someone I may or may not have had a crush on was going to be in attendance. Again, I stress the may or may not. It was one of those situations where you aren’t terribly too sure, or at the very least you didn’t want anyone to really know about it. So naturally I did the “deny deny deny” charade for some time.

As I was preparing the food and getting ready for my friends to arrive, I felt a sudden twinge of anxiety and nervousness. I began to feel pretty anxious about all of these people coming over. So naturally, like any smart 21 year old, I decided to drink the anxiety away. After all, what’s the harm in getting a little buzz on before company arrives? Of course, my intelligent, self had not eaten in quite some time, so let’s just say the booze did it’s job.

I “came alive” as my friends piled into my house. It was quite a good sized group, so I was pretty happy with the turnout. Drinks were pouring, people were eating, then all of a sudden, he showed up. Zack entered the room casually late with desserts in hand. I think one of the things I admired most about him was his thoughtfulness. So my buzzed (errr, drunk) ass goes over to greet and look over the tasty treats he’s provided.

I must preface this by saying I am a closeted picky eater. Seriously, there are only two pies that I like: apple and cherry. So looking at his selection, to my horror, Zack had purchased a peach pie. I hate peach pie. Of course, I had planned on doing the nice mature thing by saying “thank you” but my drunk brain had something else in mind. Staring down at the pie I thought to myself “Great he brought peach pie, because I f*cking hate it”. All of a sudden I hear several gasps and the room got quiet.To my shock and horror, what I “thought” I had said to myself, I actually ended up saying out loud. I looked up and surveyed the room to see the stunned faces looking at me. Zack’s face was bright red as I tried to fumble through a terrible retraction/apology.

Fortunately for me, he was pretty gracious about the whole thing and decided to tease me about for some time, and it later became the joke amongst our group. Later that year I made a peach pie for his birthday as a peace offering. As the hostess with the mostest, I proceeded to shove peach pie down everyone’s throats as a sign of solidarity. Needless to say, that was the first dessert finished that night. Even after my little debacle, it was still a great night.

Well folks, that’s how not to behave on Valentine’s Day. Here are a few key takeaways that I hope you’ve gotten from my awesome little blunder

1. Don’t drink on an empty stomach
2. Make sure you’re actually thinking in your head and not out loud
3. When someone hands you a gift just say “thank you” and shut up

I hope everyone had a swell Valentine’s day!