Jenisfamous High School Week: Day Three (Valentine's Edition!)

To recap: In a move towards a paperless office bedroom, I scanned about 50 pounds of paper and tossed out the originals. In the process, I discovered a a big stack of paper left over from high school, which I am parceling out on the blog.

Back in 1996, in an attempt to write something that could be published as a small novelty book in the checkout area at Barnes and Noble, I wrote a long list of "Deep Romantic Thoughts." Here are some favorites:

Deep Romantic Thoughts


1. My love, If I woke up tomorrow as a stray cat, I would come to your house and scratch at your screen door until I clawed holes in it, and those would be holes of love.
   
   
2. Oh, my only, I wish to use my very being as an umbrella against your pains and sorrows. Unless my chiropractor says no.
   
   
3. If you were my very own American flag, and you accidentally touched the ground and had to be burned, I would throw myself on your pyre, aware only of the patriotic heat of our love.
   
   
4. Love, if you gave me a giant chocolate bar for Valentine's Day, I would make it a shrine to you and keep it on my dresser always, even though my house would soon be infested by nauseating vermin.
   
   
5. Darling, if you wanted to be in the Guineas Book of World Records, I would do anything I could to help, even if it meant feeding you small sips of lemonade while you crawled more than 26.5 miles, which is the current record.
   
   
6. If people could be inanimate objects, I would want to be that blanket you had when you were a baby -- you know, that one you spit up on when your mom fed you too much chili.
   
   
7. If you were an itch in the middle of my back, rather than scratching, I would carry you with me always, even though it would leave me convulsing in frustration.
   
   
8. For you, my beloved, I would walk through a wall of fire, And, after that, if I had any hair left, I would brave the giant shearing scissors of death, and, after that, if I still had any eyebrows left, I would shave them off without even looking, possibly gouging my eyes into jelly, just as a subtle reminder of my passion.
   
   
9. If it meant that I could see you one more time, my love, I would exfoliate my skin by scrubbing it vigorously with the backside of a living hedgehog.
   
   
10. Mon cherie, if you and I were eating M&Ms, and you tried to feed me one and it accidentally fell on the floor, I would pick it up and eat it anyway, even if we were in the garage.
    
    
11. If you were sick and had to go to the hospital, I would overdose on vitamin A just so I could see you every day during recreation hour.
    
    
12. I'm going to say something nice to you every day. When we get old, though, it might be hard to find new things to say. But I'll be creative. Like "I really appreciate how, in fifty years of marriage, you've never cracked your knuckles continuously for more than ten minutes."
    
    
13. My sweet, if you and I went out to dinner and both had the French onion soup, and if I pulled put my box of Tic-Tacs to discover that I had only one left, I would let you have it, even though it would mean breathing onion-breath for the rest of the evening.
    
    
14. If love is eternal, then you and I will be in love all our future lives. But if, in another life, we were both boys and the gay thing didn't work out, I'd get my sister to marry you so we could spend more time together.
    
    
15. Whenever I think about you, I want to be with you as much as that dog, the one that was conditioned by Pavlov to salivate whenever that bell rang, really wanted to eat.
    
    
16. If you were sick and needed my kidney, I 'd give it to you right away. And if you got sick again, I 'd give you the other kidney, even though it would mean dying from a buildup of my own bile.
    
    
17. Dearest, if you were the French Revolution of 1789, I would be a really good Jacobin and make sure that the monarchy didn't come back into power, even if it meant that the Reign of Terror of 1791-1792 would have to go on even longer.
    
    
18. If someone told me that I couldn't see you anymore, I would ask him nicely to change his mind. If he didn't change his mind, I ask him again, but much more firmly. If he still didn't change his mind, I'd yell "Look! There's a big truck shaped like an Oscar Meyer Weiner!" to distract him, and then I'd run straight to you.
    
    
19. Beloved, if you had a most vicious cold, I would endeavor to catch it from you, so I could know that the microbes which so latterly had infested your form would now flagellate through my own.
    
    
20. If you were lost on a transatlantic cruise, I would paddle my canoe out to the place where you were last seen, and then I 'd dive in after your body until my fingers and toes became so pruny as to resemble beef jerky.
    
    
21. My one and only, if I were a platelet in your bloodstream, and you cut yourself shaving, I would allow my own feeble existence to expire in attempting to span your bleeding wound.
    
    
22. Sweetheart, if you were a soldier and you threw your body over a grenade to save the rest of your company, I would run up to your prostrate form and grab the grenade out from under you and run away with it as fast as I could so I would blow up instead of you.
    
    
23. If I were a lint brush, my sole joy in life would be to be rubbed up and down your dress slacks until my bristles fell out.
    
    
24. If you and I were in junior high and we took one of those sex-ed classes in which we were made to carry around a sack of flour and pretend it was a baby, I would name our baby after you and sculpt its grainy bulk so it resembled your divine physique.
    
    
25. If I were a tapeworm, I would suck from your intestines only the bare amount of nutrients necessary for my survival.
    
    
26. If you were a bumblebee and you stung me, I would leave the stinger in, preferring the gangrene of love to the lonely glow of health.
    
    
27. If you and I were sharing a Swiss Colony "85 Cheeses From Around the World" box, I would let you eat all the baby Gouda, even though it's always been my favorite, and I would even dab your sweet mouth with a napkin I knitted from my own eyelashes.

My high-school-best-friend Maureen wrote some Deep Romantic Thoughts of her own, which we combined into a single document, and I tried to omit the ones she wrote and only post mine here, but I'm not entirely sure whose work was whose, which was one of the reasons we were such good friends. Teen Girl Squad!

Happy Valentine's Day! Do spread these around.