Students share their Valentine's Day stories of true and not-so-true love
By Lucille Rollins
Valentine's Day Love Stories
Love on wheels
In December of 2005, Hall Director Katie Cashman's heart wasn't broken.
Instead, the end post of a guardrail along Interstate 94 in North Dakota broke through the driver's side of her car. She was left with a pelvis broken in five places, a foot broken in nine, a wrist in four, and a tailbone in one.
"I hit some ice and rolled and rolled some more," Cashman said. At the time she attended a school in Minneapolis for her graduate studies and was heading back from Christmas break at home to catch a flight to Seattle.
Cashman was still in the hospital and wheeling herself around in a wheelchair when V-day 2006 arrived.
"I'd just gotten back together with my loser boyfriend before the accident," Cashman said, noting that once a couple breaks up, it's better not to go back. "He didn't do anything, but..."
She received a better present from her kid sister: "the little guy," a Monster Manic with black taped on wheels that she still has and sings the Muppet Song.
"I was heavily medicated, that's for sure, and I'd just had my catheter taken out so I was scared to laugh," Cashman said. "But I laughed uncontrollably for the first time in months."
And that was all she needed.
The alternative to boys: a girl
"I was kind of like the man that night," said senior Kenzie Reed of her Valentine's Day four years ago, when she paid for dinner and escorted a newly single friend downtown. She had trouble remembering all the facts, but remembered that it was a worthwhile experience.
"My friend had just broken up with her boyfriend," Reed said. "I wanted to take care of her, you know?"
They were together at their favorite sushi restaurant when they decided to go get cute little dresses and wander around downtown as if they were a couple.
"We ended up holding hands as we walked with our balloons down the street," she said, trying to recall the facts. "We figured if we were out together, we might as well do the whole deal."
The experience turned into a bit of a tradition.
"Ever since then we've gone out together for dessert with other people," Reed said. "Just something simple."
A sweet gesture
Senior Valerie Silliman wasn't with her lover at Starbucks last Valentine's day, but she was seated next to someone who was waiting for his.
"He comes in with a single rose, orders a coffee, and sits down at a little table next to me and he calls his wife on the phone," said Silliman, who was later told the man's entire story after an hour. "He leaves a message about how he drove all the way down from Seattle."
The man, already antsy and overwhelmed by the fact that his wife hasn't shown up, called someone else. "He tells the person he's trying, and she's not coming and he wants to know what she wants," Silliman said.
After about an hour, Silliman said he was finally too infuriated to wait any longer.
"She hasn't shown up so he takes his one little rose and he comes over to where I'm sitting because he knows I've overheard everything," she said. "He tells me to never marry a doctor because this is what happens, apparently she loves her job more than him."
The man continues to tell Silliman that they separated but he wanted to win her back.
"I told him that I didn't think one single rose in Starbucks was enough," she said.
And then he left.
Valentine's Day Horror Stories
Last year, freshman Jessi Van Cleave didn't hear any word from her boyfriend of more than 15 months on Valentine's Day: No roses, no notes, no "Be Mine" balloons to clutter her bedroom.
But his mother did send her a full, red rose.
"He was in Kuwait serving for National Guard and decided not to talk to me," said Van Cleave of her ex-boyfriend with a hint of bitterness. She didn't hear from him until the following weekend.
"He told me that he did not love me anymore over MSN messenger and that he had found someone else," Van Cleave said.
The sweet mother who sent her the rose, presumably to compensate, allegedly set her son up with another girl when he visited for two weeks in
January.
"She knew about me," Van Cleave said of his mother, laughing it off. "But she wanted him to be with her. He was only with her for a couple months online afterwards, though."
"Of course I still believe in it," she said, referring to love and not upset at having to relive the story. "Love's a bitch, but it's fun."
The 9th wheel
We've heard of the third wheel, even a fifth wheel. But poor sophomore Jared Stefani experienced something much, much worse.
He was the ninth wheel on Valentine's Day during his senior year of high school. His two best friends who were dating at the time invited him to come out to dinner with them. They set up reservations with the restaurant and took care of the small details.
But they failed to inform him of a very important one.
"I met them there after work and everyone else had a date," said Stefani who flew solo that night.
"We were at a big table, with four other couples, and they set it up so that the dates sat across from each other at the table." Stefani's voice shook with a little bit of resentment as he called the awkward atmosphere.
Stefani got placed all by his lonesome at the very end, where he peered at everyone else having their involved conversations.
On the way home, he rode home with two other couples.
"The two people in the front were whispering to each other, and the couple me was making out," he said, muttering obscenities under his breath but unsuitable for print.
Complication turned
termination
Freshman Mikel Johnson has the fortune of being born on Valentine's Day so besides getting roses, she throws a party. Evidently, four years ago she received a surplus of boys.
Two of her better friends - who hated each other - and her ex-boyfriend were there and all three became hormonal.
"My two friends really liked me and my ex didn't like it so he was being a baby," said Johnson, disgusted, but then laughed. "He tried to ruin the party by streaking around the house."
She was ultimately faced with having to choose. "I chose one, my ex-boyfriend's best friend, and the other got really angry and left." A little embarrassed, she admitted that she chose him because he was more attractive.
"He was just flirty and cute and sweet," she said, smiling. "How could I resist?"
The next day she left on vacation and was subject to the emergence of rumors while she was away.
"When I came back there were all these rumors that I had kissed both of them," Johnson said.
"I had a lot of explaining to do to all of them."
