Conversation Hearts

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I think I have candy on the brain. Today, I was thinking about those little conversation hearts. In elementary school, conversation hearts were the Magic 8 Ball of candy, dispensing secretly coded messages of love or disdain.

Remember getting those little valentines stuffed into your homemade boxes, with a little conversation heart tucked inside. You had to give one to every kid even though you really only wanted to give them to your friends. So when it came time to choose from the various messages, it got downright overwhelming.

The truth was, yes I really DID want to give the Kiss Me heart to Rick Lowry, but if I did THAT then he might show it to someone and make fun of me. Better give him the Be Good heart instead. The So Fine should definitely go to Alex Rios, but if I give Alex that one, then who should I give the Love Me? I have THREE of the Love Me hearts. It never hurts to hedge your bets by playing all three hearts. That way it might not look so obvious that I suffered in my decision making.

Be Kind, Do Good and Chill Out are all safe bets for those kids you don't really like, but couldn't leave out. Or you can give those to the girls. Sweet Talk, For You and Yes Dear are also nicely ambiguous for either sex. Marry Me definitely sends the wrong message unless you are at least twenty five and cheesy enough to use the old candy heart proposal cliche' on Valentine's Day.

The Blanks were Necco's way of allowing you to include candy for the stinky kid without sending a mixed message. I'll bet all of his hearts were blank. That's sort of sad really. He was probably reading his tarot candy messages equally as closely as the rest of us. Blank just says, I didn't think enough of you to even bother sending a message.

I don't know if anyone else was really analyzing the meaning behind every valentine that was received along with the enclosed candy heart, but I sure was. I remember getting a Be Mine from Greg Goetzinger and pondering it for days later, looking for signs that he wanted to be my boyfriend in the fourth grade.

I didn't end up procuring any lasting relationships from those candies despite the massive amount of forethought and consideration I put into each and every one. I'm just glad we don't have to give our coworkers Valentine's Day treats. If we did, we'd have to come up with a whole new set of sayings to relay our passive aggressive feelings.

In case you are wondering, I do have a few in mind...

You're Lame
Stop Talking
Kick Me
Bite Me
You Stink
Go Home
Weird Hair
Bossy
Nosy

Any wise elementary school kid would think carefully before sending the wrong message. I suppose coworkers should too and that is why none of these are in my box of conversation hearts this year.