The privatization of Valentine's Day

Claire and her classmates celebrated Valentine's Day last Friday by participating in a week-long exercise I imagine was designed to teach them project and business practice management skills. Each student was given instructions to construct a shoebox-sized container in which other student's would place Valentines. They were given five working days - plus a Saturday and Sunday - to design, construct and deliver their Valentine receptacle to school, displaying it at their respective work areas on Friday morning. Additionally, each student was given the option of creating individual Valentines for fellow classmates  - 18 students, plus two teachers - although the older students made it known in no uncertain terms that ALL students would be taking part in Valentine distribution activities. 

Claire devised a well thought out plan to accomplish this exercise and get high marks from her teachers and fellow students alike. Even Donald Trump would've been proud! Her strategy: to contract the design and construction of both the Valentine collection box and the individual Valentines to me. It's true. She had no interest in participating beyond a management role. So instead of using this opportunity as a team-building exercise with her papa, Claire decided to privatize the most important aspects of Valentine's Day; thereby, proving to her Stewart relatives that she still has some Republican blood flowing through her veins after all, despite being raised by a couple of socialists!

And while Claire's strategy looked good on paper, she soon learned she failed to perform proper due diligence in her selection of contractor. You see, while I'm perfectly capable of designing and constructing a Valentine collection box, doing so requires an inordinate amount of time, leaving me both exhausted and disinterested in the Valentine designing phase of the project.  Therefore, Claire's Valentine receptacle looked pretty good, but the Valentine's she disbursed were pretty weak. They consisted of a tiny bag of M&Ms taped to some little Disney-themed card addressed to "my friend". By contrast, most of the Valentines Claire brought home ranged from hand-made cards to packages of candy and cool pencils, etc...

In addition to giving each school mate a Valentine, Claire - or I guess "I" - also made two extra ones for our next-door neighbors, Claire and Thomas, and placed them in their mailbox. Later that day, while retrieving our mail, I discovered two hand-made Valentines for Claire (one from Claire and one from Thomas). In addition to the hand-made Valentines, there was a little baggy of chocolates, sweet tarts, stickers and a fun pencil. And since I'm fond of speaking metaphorically, it was a bit like we gave them a 40 oz bottle of cheap beer wrapped in a paper bag. In return, we received a case of Dom Perignon wrapped in satin. Needless to say, I'm a bit embarrassed, but it's the thought that counts... right?

A side note: No, Claire was not in any sort of accident. Instead, she simply has a bad habit of picking at tiny little blemishes on her face until they actually require healing. We thought about duct-taping mittens on her hands to prevent the picking but opted to stick with band-aids instead. At the time of this posting, she's doing much better.