"Mais si vous m'apprivoisez, alors nous aurons besoin de chaque
autre."

But if you tame me, then we shall need each
other...

"A moi, vous serez unique a tout le monde."

To me, you will be unique in all the
world...

"A vous, je serai unique dans tout le
monde."

To you, I shall be unique in all the
world...

-The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery

Don closed his borrowed copy of the fictatious text. Somehow rather, the book had an adverse effect on him- The interpretions of the book was somewhat different each and everytime Don had read it. This has already been the fourth time Don had read the book, and the result he got from reading between the lines has differed since the last time.

Memories were afloat as he read every line with caution, trying to grasp the underlying meaning. Has experience sharpened his mind to react better to the book, or has it dulled his mind? Maybe Don was afraid of not being able to understand the piece of text that he took the liberty of pondering over the simple words.

Is there such a thing has reading too much into a story?

Nevertheless, Don has closed the book. He'll have to think about the story next year, when he'll pick it up and read it again. (So far, only two books have mystified Don over the years- One being Le Petit Prince, the latter being Sophie's World. Yet, that will be another story for another day.)

The train of thought was broken by the rustling of a plastic calendar. Ah, yes. February the 14th. St. Valentine's, no?

St. Valentine's Day, the only day where courtly love is expressed freely; cards with adourning hearts given lovingly. Stupid cupid roams the busy streets as his wayward arrows strike the unlikeliest of people. Indeed, such is the work of this February farce. (February facade would do well in this context too, but some people really ARE sincere during this time, so we'll rule out hypocrisy just this once.)

The Greeting Card Association reports approximately a billion cards- yes, one thousand million cards- bought and sent during this season, making St. Valentine's the second largest commercial festival, the first being Christmas.

Digression. Let us take these following cards to be the cheapest on the market, and this is the average price of cards being sold, alright? If this card costs half a dollar to produce, and it's sold at an extravagant price of two dollars, that is a three hundred percent increase! For every card sold, the manufacturor and middleman earns $0.75 each should they want to split the earnings fifty-fifty. Since there are one thousand million cards being sold, the greeting card industries earn approx. 1.5 billion dollars. That earned in just one week. That is the lowest costing cards, by the way. Some cards may range up to twenty dollars. And so I ask, why are we contributing to commercialism? End digression.

-Food for thought: Why spend 20 bucks on flowers for Valentine's when you can spend only a quarter that price any other time of the year?-

May we stop all this madness? Rather, stop being lazy and make the people around you a card or two! No, stop giving the excuses of "I can't draw" or "my art is not good"... A collage will be fine, right? Maybe you can doodle something; Or just write, with your best handwriting, a card out, then paste a cute, colourful commercial cartoon character by the side to make it look caustic commendable!

(Author's notes: I really wanted to put caustic [I did! I just striked it off!], but just to sound less sour-grapey, try saying that phrase ten times quick:-

"Cute Colourful Commerical Cartoon Character"

Seriously, what is up with the C's?!)

- - - - -

To those in love:-

After all, this is Valentine's. If you really want to get in the mood, do something extra-nice for your other half (it's a bloody metaphor, goodness sake) during this day. Yet, that is not to mean that you do not do anything else the rest of the year. Valentine's is a marketing scam, but your love and the bond between the two of you are, perhaps, eternal. Both of you are unique to each other not only during this season, but also the rest of the years you two spend together. It may be "common sense", but constant reminder helps. After all, love is in the air.

- - - - -

So instead of buying these bloody cards and making these manufacturors so f*cking rich, let us all pull in resources, get in the mood of "lurvee", and make your valentine's a copper rose! Well, that is if you're Wilbur. If you're not, make something. Anything!

Remember, it's the thought that counts! (Just don't be such a cheap-ass.)

Or if you're just a few days away from Valentine's with nothing in mind and you feel guilty, you can try to make a simple card and furnish it with various hard-to-find pretty adornments...

...It'll only take two hours if you're relly enthusiastic about it...

...On second thought, just go buy that bloody card.