When I was a kid, Valentines Day was a kids' holiday. Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure that all holidays are kids' holidays when viewed through the eyes of a kid, but I digress.

The tradition was for each of us in our elementary school classroom to create a Special Valentine's Day Mailbox. Anyone else looking at it would call it by its more scientific name - a bag. We'd each decorate our own, making sure to include our name prominently somewhere in the decorating process and then tape it to our desks first thing in the morning after we arrived at school. We'd bring cards for (you had to bring one for each person in the class; it was required by rules of fairness and decorum) and wait with baited breath for the big moment of the day when the teacher declared it "Time". Then with all the enthusiasm of little league-ers lining up to shake hands with the winning team after a baseball game, we'd file in an orderly fashion around the desks in the room and drop the appropriate card in the appropriate mailbox for each kid in the class.

You'd have to be pretty darn organized before even getting to school, because what you wrote on each one was extremely important. If you were too brief and simply signed your name, others were offended. They had to be individually addressed and most importantly, you had to pick the right one of the four designs Snoopy's Big Box of Valentine Cards to match the person to whom you would be giving it. The best picture went to your favorite people; the picture you didn't like was reserved for class bully and the kid who turned his eyelids inside out.

But you couldn't go overboard either, because one misstep, one too many XOs or i's dotted with a heart, or worse yet... inadvertently signing the card "Love," because you were used to doing that when you wrote a letter to Grandma, would have you hearing chants pairing your name with a boy's "sitting in a tree..." for the next three weeks.

Even as a kid, I always hated store bought kids' Valentines Day cards for some reason. You know those boxes of little kid valentines that aren't so much greeting cards, as a piece of paper not even as big as an index card with some silly pun on them? Yeah. They were just so boring and pathetic. Now, the only times I ever buy them is when they're completely inappropriate and therefore must be supported. One year, I simply had to purchase the World Wrestler's Federation kids' Valentine cards because it was too good to pass up. I sent them to everyone I know.

I am not known for my romantic tendencies; I think that's been well-established among those close to me. As a matter of fact, I have a whole history of inappropriate Valentines' Day cards and gifts. When KingofHearts and I were still dating, I gave him the completely romantic gift that every guy wants to receive from his girlfriend: Pez.

One year, shortly before Valentines' Day, we were watching When Harry Met Sally, and we got to the famous orgasm scene, where Sally is piling cold cuts onto her sandwich while Harry talks about how no one has ever "faked it" with him and she stops building her sandwich tower long enough to prove to him that he probably wouldn't have known if a woman had... then begins eating her sandwich. Sitting there in the beat of silence after, while the stunned cafe-goers in the scene stare at Sally before Rob Reiner's mother utters the immortal phrase, "I'll have what she's having", I happened to look over at my husband to see his mouth hanging open with an amusing look of ecstasy on his face. In that moment, he turned into Homer Simpson, looked at me longingly and said, "I wish I had some cold cuts." That Valentines' Day? He got a bag of sliced meats.

One year, I handmade cards that said, "If you were Victor Yushenko on a binge of dioxin, I'd still love you." I sent those to my friends and family, most of whom did not think it was funny and probably just threw them away with the junk mail.

One year, after trying desperately to find some appropriate Valentine's Day gift for my husband, I gave up and gave him a rock. I wrote the word "LUV" on it and declared it a "Luuuuuv Rock". He still keeps it in his drawer.

I'm not romantic, but I am memorable.

Valentines' Day is a crappy adult holiday, in my opinion. Way too much pressure. And we seem to instill it in the youngest of society. Last night as I was watching something taped on the VCR (yes... there are still people out there who have not bowed down to the TiVO gods) and was speeding through the commercials, The Dormouse, began frantically grabbing at the remote control: "Stop! Stop now, momma, I want to see the Perfect Gift!" Curious, I wound it back to what she was trying to see: it turned out to be a jewelry commercial that declared diamonds, "the perfect gift". So not only had see seen this commercial and been affected by it enough to remember it (and there's not a lot of television she watches that doesn't come from the Disney Channel, which doesn't have these kinds of ads), but she also recognized it as it flew by at triple speed.

I think this Valentines Day, I'll leave it to the kids... unless I can order these and give them to my beloved.