Panting frantically, kicking small dogs, feeling a panic attack coming on… who am I?  If you thought that I am a burglar, you thought incorrectly.  I am, in fact, a young love-sick teenage boy trying to win the love of his life. Maybe I took this a bit too far; but I truly believe that seventy-five percent of males feel this way in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day.
    The dreamy festival of Valentine’s Day is observed, or if I must, celebrated with excitement and warm-heartedness in many different countries around the world.  The most common way to celebrate Valentine’s Day is to show one’s love by buying flowers, cards and gifts.  It almost sounds to me like you can buy love; just a thought.
    Valentine’s Day is due to a daring priest named Valentine. The story goes that during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, Rome was involved in several bloody and unpopular battles.  Claudius found it tough to get soldiers and felt the reason was that men did not join the army because they did not wish to leave their wives and families.  As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome.  A romantic-at-heart priest of Rome, Valentine defied Claudius’s unjustified order. Along with Saint Marius, Valentine secretly married couples.  When his defiance was discovered, Valentine was brutally beaten and put to death on February 14, about 270 A.D.  After his death, Valentine was named a saint.
    Valentine’s Day eventually developed into a romantic holiday where lovers would create handwritten notes called “Valentines” to each other.  Around the 19^th century, people began to change from handwritten notes to mass-produced cards.  And now, in the 21^st century, people are exchanging not only cards but flowers, rings and small pets.
    My personal view on Valentine’s Day is that it is a ridiculous holiday that should be ignored.  No, I am not a bitter, old hag who has hundreds of kittens; I am a happy, young teenager who has one dog.  I have decided that people should not have a designated day of the year where they express their love for someone, but should show their appreciation and love to their loved ones every day.  Husbands should bring home flowers randomly to their wives, and wives should surprise their husbands with a new ladder or something.  Teenagers, well we shouldn’t be trying to muster up feelings of love so young, anyways.   Nevertheless, people across this country and others, will continue to celebrate this happy, terrible, frustrating, relieving, exciting, terrifying holiday we call Valentine’s Day.