By Jaci Schneider, Copy Editor

Much Ado About Something

Valentine’s Day my freshman year ranks with one of the best I’ve ever had.

My mom sent me a box of cookies, one of my guy friends ordered me flowers, and Blake gave me a tulip.

Blake was my February crush, and I wasn’t the only girl who found myself wishing the sophomore with the big smile would notice me.

I didn’t really know him at all; one of my friends knew him through her older brother, I sat near him in a class, and I had recently seen him drum with his band at a performance at the Paramount. I don’t think he even knew my name.

So when he handed me that pink and orange tulip at the beginning of Basic News three years ago, amazement, joy and disbelief competed for top emotion in my mind.

“Thanks,” I said with confusion. “Where did you get this?”

Blake wouldn’t answer and took his seat across the aisle, but my professor looked my way with a grin and said:

“Jaci, you never ask a boy that kind of question.”

So, forced into quiet submission by my interfering professor, I spent the rest of the class period trying to solve the perplexing puzzle racing through my mind.

Why would Blake give me a flower? I’d heard he had a girlfriend, and even if he didn’t, I wasn’t the kind of girl to attract the attention of cute sophomore drummers.

I wanted to believe he had a crush on me, too, and this was his way of showing it, but even with my vivid imagination, I had trouble believing that. Then I figured someone must have been handing flowers out at the Campus Center for Valentines Day, and I just happened to be the first girl he saw, but even that seemed implausible.

Then the pieces started falling into place, and I thought back to fall semester.

My neighbor and friend in Gardner Hall had a crush on a guy she called “mystery man.” I, bored one afternoon and feeling mischievous, made up an e-mail address, attributed it to this “mystery man,” and sent my friend a cheery note asking for a date.

I sat on my bed, doubled up in laughter, as I heard my friend tell our hallmates about the e-mail. I only let her excitement last a few minutes, however, before telling her the truth, and honestly insisting that I never thought she’d fall for my silly prank.

But she did. And now she had gotten me back.

As class let out, I picked up the vibrant tulip, which already was starting to droop, and walked with Blake out of the building, coercing a confession out of him. My suspicions proved correct, and we laughed about the situation, while inside I burned with embarrassment.

I ran back to my room, where all my friends waited for me, trying to act innocent.

I tried to be angry. I tried to accuse my friends of treachery and evil deeds. But I couldn’t. Blake gave me a tulip.

And now he knew my name.