I'm finally free from those damn annual reviews. The black cartoon cloud that has been hanging over my head this past week is finally starting to dissipate, though I have a feeling after this weekend there will be a fresh one.

And no, it's not because I'm one of those lame ass people who feel the need to whine and cry about being single on Valentine's Day. If anything, I think VD is the one day where I could really give a shit. It's just so...tacky. And contrived. When I hear these women at work ooohing and aaahhing over the roses so-and-so's husband sent I can't help thinking..."Gee. How original. A dozen red roses. Now you'll go home and go out to dinner and give him Thanks For the Roses Head and tomorrow will just be like any other day, you'll be bitching about his dirty socks and he'll be bitching that you never put out."

I don't mean to be so crude, but I couldn't imagine being thrilled with the annual arrival of overpriced roses in the middle of February. Even worse, I'm not sure I could stomach the bright red evelope with a nice, sweet, rhyming Hallmark verse inside. Oooh. How romantic.

Anyway, the only reason I'm thinking about it at ALL is the fact that I work at the restaurant tonight and tomorrow night. It's going to be crazy busy, full of little teenage couples and first loves sucking face at my tables and lacking the math skills necessary to calculate a respectable tip. So there you have it.

Plus I'm worried that the sweet, albeit slightly dippy twenty year old that I work with that I KNOW has a crush on me will give me one of those retina-burningly bright red envelopes and I will have to look thankful. I just wish I could get through to him re: the whole age thing. My little hints that I live in an old folks home, that I don't want to go to jail for drinking beer around him, or that my arthritis is acting up haven't been working. The boy can't drink. He doesn't like to read and SWAT is his current favorite movie. Yeah, that's the boy for me.


Ah well, Sunday is my refuge, if I can survive the reckless displays of forced affection.