Happy Valentine's Day!

Since it is Valentine's Day, I thought I might take the opportunity to regale you with a little history of this happy holiday.

The concept for the holiday is loosely based on the legend of Saint Valentine, or as the Romans called him, Valentinus, from the Latin, "Val" - which means "one who eats," "en" - meaning "with," and "tinus" meaning "spork."

As the legend goes, Saint Valentine teamed up with twin brothers Cupid and Eros, the Roman and Greek gods of love, respectively, as well as, interestingly enough, Lucky the Leprechaun in a series of adventures spanning twenty years and thousands of miles, from Ancient Troy to modern day Rome.

The relevant incident around which the holiday's traditions were formed took place on the Island of Thespia, where our intrepid heroes came across the vicious and evil cyclops Polycythemia. The cyclops chased them all around the island and, just as all hope seemed lost for the brave adventurers, the cyclops tripped and fell down the stairs, breaking her hip, after which the cherubic archers slew her with their arrows. In honor of their victory over their foe, the band roasted her heart over an open flame and ate it with a spork that Valentinus had left over from a lunch at KFC, a common ritual following the slaying a cyclops, or so I'm lead to understand.

So, from this post-slaying ritual, we get the tradition of giving hearts to people we love, as a way of saying, "I love you so much, I would face an angry cyclops for you." Of course, with all cyclops having been hunted to extinction by the 3rd century A.D, Turanga Leela not withstanding, this meaning has been lost in favor of such wisdom as, "Luv U," and "U R A Q T."

And, since we can no longer find a fresh cyclops to donate a heart for roasting, nowadays we make them out of chocolate to symbolize the voiding of bowels that inevitably comes with cessation of cyclopean life functions. It's a little gross, but c'mon, eating hearts is pretty gross, too.

Incidentally, the phrase, "Be My Valentine" translates, you may have noticed, almost literally to "Be My One Who Eats With Spork," suggesting a desire for one who would find a cyclops, rip the heart right out of its ribcage, then throw it on the floor and stomp on it til it's dead, then roast it up and serve it with some fava beans and a nice Chianti, to be eaten with leftover KFC sporks.

I'm pretty sure all this information is correct, having taken a couple years of Latin in high school. I suppose I could look it up, Google it or something, but I'm really too lazy do that.