Eve of Something

I must confess to being a little creeped out by Valentine's day here. In the UK, you might swap cards with a lover or even two. Possibly perpetrate some kind of wind-up on a friend by sending them an anonymous card, maybe posted in another town where someone you know happens to be travelling to.
There could be flowers, chocolates, even a meal. Perhaps sex. It's about the couple or would-be couple, or the object of lust or love.

This evening I was standing in line at the supermarket checkout. Behind me was a rather skinny, frizzy-haired woman bearing a large, decorated, rectangular cake.
'Isn't it beautiful?' she said to me. I looked at it. It had swirly cream icing and peach coloured sugar flowers. There was matching writing in the centre of it. Hmmm...I thought to myself, you say beautiful, I say monstrosity, but I kept my own counsel.
I made a strangled sort of noise that could have meant virtually anything in any language.
'I didn't realise it would be this beautiful,' she said, obviously wanting more from me than just a strange noise. I showed willing and peered at the upside down - to me - writing.
'What does 'Division 10' mean?' I asked.
'Oh they're my class,'
'Ok, but what does 'Division' mean, why are they called a division?'
'Well, because it's a division,' she said. I decided not to pursue this.
'I've bought them this cake and some pop,' she said.
'Does the school allow that?' asked the checkout assistant.
'Oh, oh yes, we're a very healthy school, just well you know,'
'Bet their parents will have something to say,' said the assistant,
'Well one of the bottles of pop is sugar free and the other is caffeine free,' she said, 'I mean, well, I thought, why not? Valentine's day only comes once a year.'
I looked again at the writing, yep, 'Happy Valentine's Day'.

Believe it or not, I don't always speak freely, because in my imagined scenario I say something like this,

'You freak! You have a Valentine's cake for a class of little children, what's that about? And why the frack are you giving kids cake and fizzy drinks? Have you been in another solar system for the past several years? Do you actually have to teach this class all sugar hyped, not to mention contributing to their health problems?' Then I'd have poked her in the eye with a fork.

Valentine's day comes once a year. Yes. So does every single day of the year. I was totally creeped out and I was also flabbergasted. Bizarre, creepy woman in charge of a grade 3 class. She clearly loves them. Yeeees.

Anyway. Lori and I croaked our way through 'Frogs and Snakes' today. My station is the snake station and all the kids want to see the snake. They want me to hold it so that they feel thrilled that they are near it but safe. Some of them want to touch it. None of them want to believe that snakes will eat other smaller snakes. But when I open the vivarium to get the snake out, they all go,
'Uh oh,' as though maybe when they asked whether we have anacondas or cobras and I shook my head, I had just been joking.

They think I'm Australian anyway because my puppet character, Ned the Nature Nut has been written as an Aussie snake wrangler. So, being fictitiously Australian, why wouldn't I have a bag of dangerous snakes stashed somewhere?

Why not indeed.