St. Valentine’s Day is defined as a “holiday when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. My elementary school Valentine’s days did not include the most heartfelt gifts. The Valentine’s mailboxes were mostly filled with the dollar store bought cartoon valentines. My memories consist of sticky glitter glue, talks about cooties and crushes and WAY too much pink candy. As high schoolers, I’d like to believe we’ve come a long way from then. Here are a couple of adorable, sweet and sometimes quirky Valentine’s day surprise memories from some sentimental Lane couples.

Lynne Pavletic, Div. 875

“It was Valentine’s day 2016, the first time I had met his parents. We go in his room and there’s a big bear for Valentine’s day and it’s wearing the sweater that I always wanted; it was his Rice Bowl sweater that had ‘DROD’ on the back. There was also a big box of goodies and included in the goodies was a bath bomb. I got home, took a bath and found that in the bath bomb was a promise ring that represents a promise to stay faithful and stay together for high school and go from there for college.”  

Michael Neil, Div. 866

“When my girlfriend Hannah was in Greece, I basically broke into her house and I got a bunch of post-it notes and wrote a bunch of nice things like ‘I love you,’ ‘I missed you’ so that she would come back to a surprise. It was something to make her smile because I would be gone in Wisconsin the week she came back, so it would be really nice for her to come home and see that while I was away.”

George Doherty, Div. 867

“My girlfriend had a really bad day. At eleven or twelve at night she told me she really wanted some toffee because she was craving it. She loves toffee–it’s her favorite. So I got up and went to Margie’s Candy store and I bought her 36 pieces of toffee and I put it on her front door with a bow for her to find the next morning so she wouldn’t be sad.”

Carissa Meredith, Div. 855

“I’ve always loved snakes since I was like three years old–they’re my favorite. I had my snake Nagini, and a couple winters ago she escaped and I was never able to find her, and it really affected me. During that Christmas my boyfriend pretended that he was really broke and wasn’t able to get me anything, so I didn’t have any expectations. One day I came home from school and he was there and behind him was a snake cage with a ball python. We named her Ramen and I still have her today–she’s my little ramen noodle. It made me feel really special and the fact that he knew how much losing my other snake had affected me, and how he tried to soften that blow was really special. It’s even more special because it came from him and from his heart.”

Aimee Soto, Div. 977

“It was the day before my boyfriend’s AP test and he asked if I could hold his book for him in my locker. He left the book, and the next day he asked me to look inside it. I was very confused, but I grabbed the book from my locker and saw eight envelopes, each one saying: Period 1, Period 2, etc. He sent me a text saying that for every period that you have, open up the card and you can see something that I love about you. He said it was to make me feel like he was with me the whole day even though he couldn’t be. So I opened it up every class period and my friends were always around me being like ‘Oh my God’ and ‘What does this one say?’ I would read it out loud to them and they would all say ‘Awwww.’ With me, I really felt like he cared because he thought about me a lot the night before to do something like that. Some of my friends wanted to know what it said, but to me it just felt really personal and loving. It made me feel like he pays attention to the little things that other people don’t pay attention to. When I opened up the last one I was really happy and I read through all of them again.”

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(Illustration by Mytam Vo)