Valentine's Day - much better than the movie

So what's my strong, stubborn, unwavering opinion about Valentine's Day? Well, ever since I graduated elementary school and left behind the cute crafts and homemade mailboxes, Valentine's Day has held little significance for me. There hasn't been much to look forward to, nor much to dread. I actually found myself bored in the sea of pink and red, candy and chocolate, hearts and balloons. That was, until I hit high school. Recently I have discovered that Valentine's Day is one of the greatest forms of entertainment offered over the course of the entire year. And this year it was better than ever. Twitter fever, prom season, spoiled girls, and awkward relationships all came together and created one of the most eventful and hilarious Valentine's Days I have witnessed to date. I think I enjoyed sitting on the sidelines more than I would have enjoyed having an actual Valentine (excluding my cat, of course). There were girls who wouldn't stop talking and tweeting about Valentine's Day since the beginning of February, who had already informed their boyfriends that they expected nothing less than a James Avery ring and candlelight dinner, and who donned so much red and pink that they looked like they purchased the entire Valentine's aisle at Target. There were other girls who declared the holiday as Single Awareness Day and who I half expected to come together and riot outside every restaurant decorated with hearts and other ooey-gooey paraphenalia. There were boys who seemed to spend their entire savings on gifts for that "special someone" and who I watched in horror as they were hopelessly rejected. There were boys who ruthlessly used the holiday as a way to stock up on their candy inventory. There were some who laughed, some who cried, and others who cried from laughing as the onslaught of prom manifested itself in the holiday, sparking the drama that will undoubtedly continue until the dance itself. And there were people, like me, who sat back and soaked up the real life soap opera in a mixture of amusement, disbelief, horror, and delight.

Satire - the funny kind (who knew?)

After relentlessly researching for an adequate piece of satire on the Internet (typing in "satire," "funny satire piece," "political satire," etc. into various search engines), I stumbled upon theonion.com. After reading a few articles and watching a few videos I was thoroughly confused... either the editors of this newspaper were publishing their articles from an asylum or they were on some sort of hallucinogen. Then I realized... it was all fake, or in AP Lang speak, a site solely dedicated to satirizing modern society. I ended up settling on the article Alarming Study Finds More Than 12 Instances Of Racism Occurred Last Year, which had me laughing from the title. The tone of the article was sarcastic and lightly mocking from start to finish -- and was jam-packed with rhetorical devices. Hyperboles were scattered everywhere (from "I can understand one, possibly two racially charged comments uttered in the heat of the moment, and then quickly recounted and apologized for; people make mistakes, after all. But more than a dozen? That's inconceivable," to "In the only high profile event of its kind, an intoxicated man at a Plano, TX bar openly declared that President Obama, who is of African descent, should "go back to Kenya where he belongs," spurring a swift investigation by the Secret Service.") and irony was evident in virtually every sentence ("researchers had been operating under the com­monly held assumption that bigotry on such a massive scale was a distant relic of the past"). The devices were not only effective, but they were just plain funny ("Describing the data as 'extremely worrisome,' the research team detailed a staggering five occasions on which white people walked faster after noticing a black teenager walking behind them..." - come on, that is hilarious). I was seriously laughing out loud at a few points -- not because I think making fun of African Americans is funny, but because this article shows just how ridiculous and racist our society has become.  The Ku Klux Klan may not be running rampant, but stereotypical comments are conjured up in our minds as soon as we see a black dude with saggy pants or an Asian scampering around with five textbooks. No matter what we say, we all know deep down that prejudice still plays a large role in our society... and in our own minds as well. This article, while being laugh-out-loud funny, made its readers reevaluate their perspective and consider thinking about what they say before they say it. Cause let's face it, we probably see 12 racist comments about Obama on Facebook without having to even look for them.

Fast Forward

Febuary 5th, 2032 is just another typical day in the life of Mattingly Marie Blahblahblah, a 36-year-old orthodontist living in San Diego. She wakes up every morning at 5:30 am in order to get to work on time -- except for Fridays, of course, because anyone who is their own boss would never work more than 4 days a week. After making breakfast for her 4-year-old Jocelyn and 2-year-old Brady, she says goodbye to her husband, Mr. Blahblahblah, and heads to the office.

Even though winter is still going strong, the weather is beautiful – the sun is just beginning to peak out of the trees, and a cool breeze brings the fresh salty scent of the ocean to the Blahblahblah residence, a stacked stone two story house with a huge flat backyard. Mattingly pulls out of the garage in her 2030 black camaro convertible – top down, of course – and spends the half hour drive to work on the phone catching up with her brother, who just returned to his home in Dallas after covering the Super Bowl. Work is pretty uneventful, except for taking off one twelve-year-old girl’s braces, who was so ecstatic that she left the office with a huge smile still painted across her face. Mattingly meets up with her husband for lunch at In-n-Out burger – their favorite restaurant – and irons out the details of where to vacation for spring break. After settling on schlepping to Florida and taking the kids to Disney World – because, they both agreed, Disney Land just isn’t the same – Mattingly returns home to work and Mr. Blahblahblah goes back to the Blahblahblah residence, where he designs his latest architecture project in his home office. Mattingly closes up her practice around five and stops by the AT&T store on the way home to pick up her new iPhone 42 (Brady had given the old one to their golden retriever as a chew toy). She pulls into the garage around six o’clock, and walks in to see that dinner was already on the table. She sits down with her family and listens to everyone’s latest stories – Mr. Blahblahblah complains about an annoying client, Jocelyn recites three Disney princess stories in full-fledged anguishing detail, and Brady rattles on about something to do with a dog who had a rake – or maybe it was about a frog in a lake. Mattingly sits back and took it all in, smiling to herself, and daydreams about what the next twenty years had in store for her.