My Valentine’s Day Mistakes

My first proper Valentine’s Day cringe-fest mistake was in High School. I had a crush on this guy that sat infront of me in my Technology class and decided that I really needed to send him a V-Day card. This was obviously a time in my life when I had no worries, no money (imagine that) and definitely no bank card (wahoo) so, I decided to make him a card… using WORD. I had this nifty PC that my Parents had brought for us at Christmas and you could print a fold-up card on a single sheet of A4 and to be honest, it was pretty cool. It took me a few evenings to perfect the card, I guess it was the Designer coming out in me a little early? I popped some nifty clipart all over it, probably a lot of love hearts and cartoon ducks. I typed up my little message of lurve and made sure I finished the card off with a huge “Love from ?” …because let’s face it, you definitely didn’t want your Valentines to know who you were, right?

After about 10 printing attempts, my Dad finally having to help me and probably a few ink changes later, the card was ready. I mean, bloody hell… it was a work of art! I had hand crafted a card for the current love of my life (lolz) and he was going to love it. My heart thumped until forth period came around, the lesson he sat infront of me. I made sure I got there 10 minutes early and I darted in the classroom, kinda like Batman with a injury and I planted the card on his desk. I then made my quick escape so no one could catch me in the act.

The classroom filled up, he saw the card and so did his friends. “Ohhhhhhh’s” filled the room and I swear my face was as red as my uniform tie, but I mean… it was okay because no one knew it was from me anyway! He opened it, his face as red as mine no doubt, and his friends crowded round to see the cutesy clip art and discover the ? at the bottom of the card.

Then, I heard my name. LOUD. LAUGHING. EVERYONE FACING ME.

Turns out, when you printed things out on a PC back then, it would very kindly print a sort of ‘copyrighted by’ line on the back of the document and my card was no exception.

‘Printed by Laura Potter, at 18.53’

There have been many more cards sent after that episode, sure enough I didn’t learn much BUT I did learn to never print things from my PC again, so that’s something at least. I sent more mystery cards, even though most of the time my Mum drove me to their houses for me to post it through the letter box. I mean that’s not very spy like is it?

Then later, when I was going through a slight man-hate phase of my life, I had a V-day card left for me on my desk at work. I was over the moon, my mind went into overdrive. The man of my dreams had snuck into my work BEFORE it opened, found my office and my desk without asking and LEFT ME A CARD. Then I opened it… and it was from my Boss. Turns out she wanted us to work late that day.

Luckily I’m married now and after my life long attempts at trying to embrace Valentine’s Day, a Chinese takeaway, film and comical card is all it takes – the takeaway being the best part – if only I had known!

Jumper – Weekday

Trousers – Reclaimed Vintage

Bag – Karl Lagerfield

Shoes – 4th & Reckless