So, here we go, another Wednesday. And Valentines Day, to boot. It’s rather an odd day to have representing “romance,” really. Back in the olden days, (like, the fourth century B.C.), the Romans had an annual lottery around this time of year (for the festival of Lupercalia), where the names of teenage women in the vicinity were placed in a box and drawn at random by young men. The two were then paired off for a year, until the next lottery (although sometimes they fell in love and stayed together permanently). Not a bad set-up, really – one year trial, and if it doesn’t work out, well, better luck next time. None of this sat very well with the Christians, of course (ever the spoilsports), so they figured they’d better fuck things up. That’s where they came up with the whole Valentine’s Day thing.

The Christians (unlike the Catholics) hated all that pagan stuff, but they knew if they were to successfully control everything (and everyone), they needed to give the people their little rituals (kind of like sitting though a lecture on the King of Peace and the meek shall inherit the Earth, before heading out to the football stadium and screaming in a drunken rage, “kill, kill, KILL“). So, they decided to create a day to honor Saint Valentine – a priest who refused to quit performing marriages after they were banned by Emperor Claudius II (seems they were having trouble getting people to enlist in his legions, which he attributed to married guys not wanting to leave their wives and families). Valentine was given quite a few chances to knock it off, but he refused and was eventually beaten to death with clubs, and then beheaded (just to make sure, I suppose; the Romans were quite thorough that way) on February 14th (actually, there were a bunch of Valentines – at least three, and maybe as many as seven – but the story works better with only one). What with the Christians – even back then, apparently – having a difficult time separating brutality, blood, and death, from love, they figured this was just the sort of thing to make a lover’s holiday out of.

Supposedly, before his execution, St. Valentine (one of ’em, anyway) send a note to the jailer’s daughter (whom he had cured of blindness, or so the story goes – far be it for me to suggest there was something more untoward going on) signed “From Your Valentine.” Aw. So, instead of the lottery, the Roman guys and gals started exchanging Valentines cards (probably saying something like “sayus, babyus, putteth down que plumbus, and getteth mei plumbus surgo surrexi surrectum”), and then some kid probably cried ‘cuz he didn’t get one, so his mother bitched, and then they came up with a rule that everybody has to give a Valentine to everybody else.

So, anyhow, in keeping with the romantic customs of the day, has anybody out there every had an increasingly sore armpit, accompanied by chills, fever, fatigue, and night sweats? Just curious.