As anyone who has set foot in a retail environment within the past month can tell you, Valentine’s Day is fast approaching. By my count, there’s only about a week or so left until that holiday of holidays sets upon us. I thought it might be interesting to examine the history of Valentine’s Day to see how we progressed to the modern holiday of the heartbreaking junior-high carnation exchange and young adult over-analyzed gift selection. Unfortunately, I’m a bad journalist and I only had time to consult one source, myself, for this history lesson. Unburdened by such journalistic conventions as accurate reporting, I heroically dug deep and pressed my source for the best information possible. What follows is the fruits of my labors.

The modern Valentine’s Day, which can be traced to a 1960s nursing home commune in southern California actually has its roots in a medieval pagan holiday called Valentinum, after a still-to-be-discovered metallic element that would make really awesome jewelry. This day was adopted and adapted by Christians in the 15th century. Christian scientists, unsure if Valentinium were ever to be discovered, decided to rename the day “Valentine’s Day” as a form of public ridicule of someone they thought had a really funny name.

Valentine skirted this derision with aplomb, however, and was able to turn his new-found fame into an asset. Valentine went from ‘that guy from town with the funny name and smell’ to ‘that guy with the funny name on all our calendars.’ He won himself many suitors and doters, and went on to have somewhere between one and 23 wives for various lengths of time, many concurrently.

The tradition of exchanging Valentine’s cards began because Valentine, with so many wives, had difficulty remembering individual birthdays. He instituted one en-masse birthday celebration for all those in his family and began mass-producing cards with cheesy sayings to distribute, saving himself time and the need to get to know any of those close to him. It is rumored that he was only ever able to address half of the cards, choosing to rely on the more generic “To whom it may concern” as his most common salutation. This great tradition lives on in the modern business letter.

The pink and red low contrast color scheme arose because he was colorblind on the lower end of the visible light spectrum. He thought every card he ordered was actually orange, his favorite color and the name of many of his children. It is said that nothing in the English language rhymes with orange because Valentine wanted it that way.

The modern tradition of exchanging teddy bears and chocolate also came from Valentine, who actually gave live bears (small ones). The chocolate was for them. He ended this when one of the bears ate three family cats and the newborn, named Teddy.

He has since been canonized as the patron saint of greeting cards and that ‘aww’ sound mothers of small children make.

Fast forward five hundred years or so to that nursing home in the late 60s, to the birth of the illustrious ‘Cupid’ tradition. It is said the nursing home had one particularly old and fairly senile resident, I think named Tim. Tim would often get loose wearing nothing but an adult diaper and a homemade bow and arrow to fight off the nurses that would chase him. He would repeatedly yell ‘cupid!’ in their direction, and it was said to be so cute that one couldn’t help but fall in love with him. Interestingly, Tim was without many teeth and was actually calling the nurses stupid, but not too many people know this.

So there you have it, the modern Valentine’s Day, with all its quirks, explained away. I’ve decided to attach some tips for succeeding this Valentine’s Day below, so that you, good reader, will not be lost next week. In the business, we call this service journalism, as in ‘we are giving you a great service.’ If you feel like thanking me, my mailbox is number 3063, and my favorite chocolate is the kind with peanut butter in the middle.

Ways to save money this Valentine’s Day

For men:

• Roses made from silk can be given for more than one occasion. And they never wilt!
• Chocolates only last a few hours. The cardboard box they come in lasts forever. Fill last year’s with new candies.
• Dinner and a movie, while traditional, can also become expensive quickly. A good rule of thumb for saving money is to avoid restaurants that don’t have dollar menus. If you’re lucky, you’ll even be able to avoid tipping.
• As for movies, the campus channel has a selection of four each week, and multiple showings each day. Put a price tag on everything in your kitchen and your girlfriend won’t be able to tell the difference between your house and a real movie theater.
• Cubic zirconium looks a lot like diamond. Especially if you steal her glasses first.

For women:

• Beer is pretty cheap.
• So is pizza.