It's just Cupid's payday

By Maggie Beidelman

Planning on celebrating Valentine's Day this year?

Skip the cheap chocolate and Safeway flowers. Why not just cut to the chase and celebrate Valentine's Day's predecessor, a holiday based on fertility: Lupercalia.

An old Roman pastoral festival, Lupercalia spanned from Feb. 13-15 and was meant to avert evil spirits and purify the city by releasing health and fertility, Wikipedia tells me.

Basically, priests lashed at young women with thongs made of goatskin to ensure female fertility and prevent sterility.

Right.

There's nothing like a good whipping to make babies.

But anyway, let's be honest -- it's college. All anyone has on their instinctual minds is fertility. Who doesn't want a brand new baby -- or if you're lucky, two of them -- to celebrate next Thanksgiving?

Who wants flowers that will die in a week when you can have a child that lasts a lifetime?

Though Valentine's Day was started as a celebration of love, college students everywhere are unknowingly bent on celebrating Lupercalia anyway.

As my colleague mentions on page 11's carnal love songs playlist, one thing you can count on this weekend is lots of people attempting to fulfill their congenial conjugate holiday roles by making love.

What a nice expression.

Hallmark knows what love is: passing out paper cards with creatures like the Hulk or Care Bears creepily grinning from their perforated prisons.

There's nothing like an oversized green man or a bear with a cupcake for a belly button to woo your sweetheart.

Holidays are weird. Presidents Day, Labor Day, the Fourth of July -- these make sense. These holidays provide three-day weekends and excuses to eat hot dogs. But with Valentine's Day, we don't even get the day off.

Valentine's Day is just like every other day, only with pink and red confetti thrown up all over it. Why must we denote a single, special day to tell our loved ones the truth?

What if we forget?

God forbid you forget to say "I love you," on Valentine's Day. If these three little words slip your mind while in the company of your significant other on Cupid's payday, you're screwed (and I don't mean that literally). The heavens will open up and black tar will pour over you while cherubs have a pillow fight. You will end up painfully ridiculed, 18th century feudal Europe-style.

My proposal: This Valentine's Day, leave the chocolate, chick flicks and cheese behind, and just celebrate the fact that it's Saturday night.

On second thought, keep the chocolate.