If while walking to Lecture Hall you see a naked midget flying around shooting arrows at the student body, stay calm. Though you may think it’s Peter Pan on LSD, it’s really a cute cuddly cupid spreading love and joy to our cloud-and precipitation-filled campus.

Sure, corporate America wants to suck you into all the lovey-dovey hoopla surrounding Valentine’s Day, but beware. It’s not really named after a Christian martyr who is the patron saint of love. Valentine’s Day is a load of crap.

Here’s the real story kids: one day Mr. Walt Whitman, who is infamous for both his poetry and chocolate samplers, arranged a meeting with Mr. Cornelius Hallmark. The two greedy insatiable businessmen conspired to increase their already exorbitant cash loads by creating a new holiday.

But what would the holiday celebrate? And in what month? All of the months were already accompanied by great holidays. December had Christmas, October had Halloween, and March had Madness.

Alas, what about February? After all, what had February to offer the modern consumer? There’s Groundhog day with that psychic rodent, Phil, but he always predicts six more weeks of winter. President’s Day is a great holiday, maybe 200 years ago.

Of course there is Whatangi… Waitungi… Waitangi Day but the calendar indicates that it occurs in New Zealand, so F that. The people of that island nation can have fun both celebrating and pronouncing their national holiday.

Hallmark and Whitman decided to overlook all of the already established holidays and hit us with the one thing that cripples us all: love. Their conversation about this new “love” day went down something like this:

“Women are emotional and insecure, so of course they’ll want to be reminded that their men worship them with cards and chocolates!” Hallmark gleefully observed.

“And men will want to keep their women happy to ensure nightly lovemaking sessions,” agreed Whitman, “but what about all of the single people out there? How will this make them feel?”

“Screw ‘em. We’ll make them miserable, and you know what miserable people love more than Prozac? Chocolate and sympathy cards!” snickered Hallmark.

“O Captain! My Captain! It’s foolproof,” exclaimed Whitman.

And so Valentine’s Day was born. So fear not, my relationship-less friends, Valentine’s Day is just a ploy to steal all of your money. If you are still feeling despondent you should head down to State Street for the night. Nothing says “be my valentine” like a Scorpion Bowl from the Rat.

Erica Fritz is a junior psychology major