TRU LUV

I am a huge fan of those little candy hearts you always see around Valentine's Day. Actually, due to a fun little quirk of market-forces, I see a lot of them right after Valentine's Day, too. I don't care if the holiday is past or not, the post-holiday sales are just an added bonus to an already excellent package. I pop these suckers like they're CANDY. I mean these things are made of pure sugar AND they massage your ego? How can you go wrong?

Actually, you'd be surprised. Here's one way - using the hearts to predict your romantic future. I used to do this in highschool (notice that I did not say that I have stopped doing this - I'm just going to let you infer that I have and then not bother to correct you). I'd start by asking a question about whatever girl had caught my attention. Then I would pick a heart at random and use the message as my answer, kind of like a Magic 8 Ball, but with no bad answers (or so one would think). It never worked out quite as well as I hoped. It turns out that it's a lot easier to get depressing answers than I had expected. I thought I had this whole thing locked up. I was using candy made for Valentine's Day for relationship advice, candy designed for romance (hey, my friends hadn't been doing me much good there and I certainly wasn't getting anywhere by trying to apply logic . . .). I thought it was a foolproof plan. I was wrong. Those little hearts look so innocent, but the suckers can be MEAN.

I asked once, "Should I kiss Lauren?" I was thinking here primarily of the hearts that said "Yes." I had seen several in the bag earlier, so I knew they were there. The answer that came back, however, was, "Stay good." (I hate that message) Okay, so maybe the question was poorly worded. I tried again. "What would Lauren say if I asked her to go out with me?" to which I received the oh-so-helpful response "UR Nice." Ha! "You're a nice guy" in my experience, is almost always followed by a "but." Once again, the messengers of love had instead delivered a message of luke-warm tolerance. I tried a third time because (and you have your pick of reasons here): a)I'm a sucker for punishment; b) tragedies must always come in threes; c) I'm the king of wishful thinking; or d) all of the above. Regardless of the reason(s), I thought up a third question. I knew, of course, that I already had two less-than-ideal responses but I wasn't too worried. I also knew that any positive responses I might receive would automatically negate any and all unpleasant answers I had already heard. One positive answer would mean all the negative answers were flukes or misinterpretations of the omens (That's how good fortune-telling works). So I had a lot riding on this third question. I thought for a while and finally came up with a winner. "What does Lauren think about me?" I was pretty proud of myself for that one. Any of the answers I already had would be good answers to get for that question. I couldn't think of a heart that wouldn't, really. I closed my eyes and picked one out of the bag. Slowly, I opened my eyes again, "Wise up." (I am not kidding, there really are candy hearts that say "wise up.") I told you those suckers could be mean.

That was it, I'd had enough. Telling me what I didn't want to hear was one thing, mocking me outright was quite another. I ate the rest without asking any questions and trying (and failing) not to notice how good THOSE answers would have been ("marry me", "my teddy bear", "email me"). I decided that instead of asking the candy hearts, maybe I should just ask Lauren herself.

She told me I was a nice guy...