MY FUNNY VALENTINE
MAYSOON ZAYID
by Hallmark to taunt all the single ladies, the loveless lads, and the unattached nonbinaries.
I am not a fan of VD and I never have been. My oldest sister was born on Cupid’s favorite holiday, so for as long as I can remember, February 14 was about celebrating her. If it was up to my mom, she would have skipped the hearts and candy altogether. My father, however, insisted on buying her flowers and something sparkly. My folks were definitely not the type to Valentine their kids, so the rest of us got nothing.
When I got to kindergarten, Valentine’s Day became super-stressful. I was raised in a Muslim family. We were four girls, and liking boys was strictly forbidden. My parents didn’t mind that we studied and socialized with the guys, but Valentine’s cards would be crossing the line, even at the age of five. If we wanted to participate, we could hand a greeting to any gal. Handing just half the class cards would have been fine by me—I have cerebral palsy and scrawling twenty-five students’ names on tiny greetings was super-challenging. Sadly, that was not an option. My kindergarten teacher had rules. It was all or nothing. If you didn’t have cards for everyone, then no one would get one. I petitioned my teacher to make an exception due to my faith, but she would not budge. She laughed in my face and said hell no.
Kindergarten wasn’t all that bad. I gave nothing, but I still got tons of cards, candy, and even a red Beanie Baby bear. First grade wasn’t such a picnic. My fellow students would begrudgingly hand me a Hershey’s kiss and then stare me down, knowing I would not reciprocate. By the seventh grade, I figured out that I could give out my Valentines behind my overlords’ backs. I existed before social media. No one was going to snitch on me or post me. I made my greetings by hand. My CP made me shake all the time. I had no business cutting loose-leaf paper into hearts. I risked my digits just to be included.
By high school, we were no longer forced to pretend we loved everyone. We could pick and choose the objects of our affection. Being a teen comes with its own angst. Mine came in the form of my high school’s annual Valentine’s Day fundraiser. The student council would sell handmade paper carnations. Volunteers, including myself, spent months twisting pipe cleaners around tissue paper and creating thousands of red, pink, and white flowers. Each color had a meaning. Red was love, white was friendship, and pink was sexy. This was many moons ago and people had no idea what age-appropriate was.
The flowers were distributed on Valentine’s Day in homeroom. I wanted nothing to do with the pink flowers. If I had gotten one, I would’ve tossed it in the trash. Crushing on Danny Biroc behind my parents’ backs was one thing, but bringing home a sexy bloom would have gotten my Muslim butt grounded for life. From freshman to senior year, I would always get a bouquet of white roses. I had had the same gaggle of girlfriends since kindergarten. I loved them, they loved me, and we forked out the money to prove it. White is nice, but everyone wants at least one red stem. This wasn’t Galentine’s Day, where we celebrate our best buds. This was Valentine’s Day, and every commercial that I was subjected to for the first fourteen days of February reminded me that if the love wasn’t romantic, it simply did not count.
The only thing worse than being red-rose-less was having no blooms at all. Each homeroom had a couple of heartbroken young adults who hadn’t received a single sprig. I remember twisting together my seven carnations while the flowerless child next to me stared blankly at the chalkboard. Those sad students stuck with me. I finally realized why all or nothing was required in grammar school.
My senior year, I was elected student council president. One of my campaign promises was that no teen would go roseless again. I kept my word and made sure that every single soul in Cliffside Park High School got at least one white rose. That same Valentine’s Day, I decided to defy my masters. I snuck out with my first love. My date took me to a stand-up comedy show. Armed with fake IDs, we got front-row seats. I nervously laughed the night away, with visions of my father catching me holding hands with a boy at a comedy club dancing through my head.
Perhaps it is my karma for defying my parents all those years ago: I never went on another Valentine’s Day outing. I once bought a dude a car for Christmas and he still picked someone else to be his Valentine. I have been subjected to a slew of weddings on Cupid’s day. If you are engaged and planning your nuptials, please keep in mind that only assholes set February 14 as their wedding day. It is bad enough that you throw bowling-ball-sized bouquets at single women’s heads. Making them try to find a wedding date on Valentine’s Day is a mean girl’s move.
For years, I was chronically Valentine-less, but I refused to stop believing, and my quest led me to one of my greatest loves of all. I had just graduated from college and was chilling at the Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Center because I was jobless. It was my favorite spot in Manhattan due to its proximity to the New York City Ballet and the high school where the movie Fame was set. I dreamed of being a contestant on Jeopardy! so I spent my ample free time memorizing a potpourri of trivia.
I was lounging in an overstuffed chair, perusing a book on defunct maps of the Middle East, when my studies were interrupted. The most beautiful boy I ever did see strolled by me. I tossed aside the atlas and began to pursue him. My plan was to stumble across his path so that we could meet-cute like in a romantic comedy. This would also give me an opening to nonchalantly mention my disability. I needed to get in front of the object of my desire, but this babe walked briskly. I had to zigzag across the street like Frogger just to keep up with him.
He entered a building, and of course I followed. He held the door for me, and we waited for the elevator in silence. Due to my CP, standing is not my thing. I can dance, I can walk in heels, but if I’m upright for more than a second, I topple over. I leaned on the wall next to the elevator door, trying to look sexy while avoiding crumpling to the ground. My eyes locked with a pair of bright blue peepers staring back at me from a painted mural. It was Jesus Christ, and this was his Church of Latter-day Saints. A loud ding snapped me out of my trance. My mystery man and I rode the elevator up silently together. Like a lemming, I followed him into a Bible study class. He took a seat, and I plopped down right next to him. He charmingly offered to share his holy book with me, since I was Bible-less. Muslim me didn’t want to be rude, so I said, “Amen!”
The class lasted an eternity. It was like the never-ending story. When it finally finished, a tall, stunning, blue-eyed Barbie sidled up to us. She introduced herself as Alyee and handed me a printed-out flyer inviting me to her birthday party. She had just finished her mission and was spending a gap year in New York City before heading to law school. Alyee invited everyone in the Bible study class, including me. I had a flashback to the kindergarten Valentine’s Day rule—either everyone gets a card or no one does. It was what Jesus would do. The dude sitting next to me said he was in, which meant I was in too.
I went to Alyee’s birthday party, and she became my best friend in the world. I have always been blessed with amazing friendships with women. I am still friends with the seven girls who used to send me white roses in homeroom, but I had always dreamed of finding a man to complete me. That all changed the day that I met Allyson Russell Snow. Alyee was born in Idaho, was raised in Florida, and went to college in Montana. Upon graduating, she headed out on a Mormon mission. She served in the Spanish-speaking district of San Francisco. Once her mission was accomplished, she landed in New York City, where she found me. I have met a lot of extremely religious people, being from the Holy Land and all, but I have never met anyone more Jesus-like than Alyee. For a year we slayed NYC. It was like Sex and the City without the sex. Muslims and Mormons have a lot in common—we’re not supposed to drink, and no doing the wild thing before marriage. Hanging out with Alyee made it very easy for me to stick to my unwanted values. Like Danny and Sandy at the end of summer in Grease, we were torn asunder when autumn came.
Alyee left the big city for law school in our nation’s capital. We would alternate weekends in D.C. and New York. It was all fun and games until Brigham Young University gave Alyee an offer she couldn’t refuse. She abandoned the East Coast for the great Salt Lake. I assumed I would never see her again. This was before cellphones and Facebook. If your bestie moved to another state, it was pretty much the equivalent of being dead. I am terrible at long-distance relationships, but Alyee was the queen of keeping in touch. She is also the poster child for ride-or-die friendship. If I ever find myself in lockup, Alyee is undoubtedly my one phone call.
While Alyee was studying for the bar exam, I was falling in love with a Broadway star. Zeph was a Riverdancer. My parents couldn’t afford physical therapy, so they sent me to tap class. Riverdancing is like tapping except you don’t move your arms. I had always dreamed of dancing on Broadway. Dating a member of the chorus line was the next best thing. Anytime Alyee found the quarters and a payphone to dial me, I would regale her with stories of my fairy-tale relationship. But there was no happy ending. In the end, the Riverdancer clog-danced on my heart.
Alyee dropped her life and flew to New Jersey. This was my first real heartbreak and I dealt with it like one of my beloved soap divas. I was sloppy. Alyee scooped me up and tossed me into my gold Jeep Grand Cherokee, and we drove cross-country to Utah so that she could bring me back to full yay! I was a substitute teacher, so I definitely had the time.
Alyee and I took ride-or-die to a whole new level because we seriously almost lost our lives on the heartbreak road trip. If we had followed Route 80 west without detouring, we would have been just fine. But like a cat, Alyee was easily distracted. In Indiana, she saw a drive-through corn maze and had to give it a whirl. I am a person of color, I know what happens to us in horror movies. It’s always the silly white girl who goes racing into harm’s way, and that is exactly what Alyee did. We got lost in the maze for four and a half hours. The Cherokee was on its last drop of gas when a yellow Corvette entered the field and began stalking us. We had no GPS and no cellphones. My Jersey girl instincts kicked in. I was done with lefts and rights. I drove straight ahead, mowing down the corn, so I could break on through to the other side. To this day, I am amazed that we were not serial-killed.
Our trip was poorly planned, and halfway through, Alyee realized she would have to fly home from Kentucky so as not to miss the bar exam. I dropped her off at the Louisville airport, which would someday bear the name of Muhammad Ali, and she said she would pray for me to make it to Utah alive. I should’ve turned back to Jersey, but instead I rolled on out of Kentucky, through Missouri, and into Kansas. Before she abandoned me, Alyee had taught me that I could survive without a love interest and that I could get by with a little help from my friend. After she flew off into the sunset, I discovered something even more important: I could make it on my own.
I am sure that Kansas is a lovely place, but its stretch of Interstate 70 is mind-numbing. On my solo road trip, there was only one thing to look at—countless billboards that read “X Miles to the World’s Largest Prairie Dog!” These signs counted down the miles to Prairie Dog Town by fifties, tens, and then, finally, singles. For five hundred miles I waited to see this rodent of an unusually large size. It is good to have goals other than getting hitched. When I finally got there, the prairie dog wasn’t even alive. It was taxidermied. I leaned up against it and took what might have been the world’s first selfie with a disposable camera that Alyee had left with me to document the rest of my journey.
I was GPS-less and had nothing but printed-out MapQuest directions to guide me. Miraculously, I made it to the land of milk and honey. Upon my arrival in Utah, I learned that my lousy luck with love had rubbed off on my best friend. Alyee had suffered her own bad breakup. The Mormon club owner she had planned to wed had dumped her, and she was determined to win him back. Using her substantial connections in the singles ward at her church, she managed to score us an invite to her ex’s annual Thanksgiving potluck.
Depressed me was the perfect wingchick. Instead of trying to talk Alyee out of getting back her former man, I cheered her on with the type of zeal that only a special kid could muster. We had a strategy. Anytime I saw her ex, Cliff, the host of the soiree, canoodling with any other person, I would break up the banter by asking them to tell Muslim me more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every person at the party wanted a shot at saving my soul. As Alyee and Cliff reconnected over mashed potatoes and gravy, I sat surrounded by my new Christ-adoring admirers. I told them the tale of how the Riverdancer had ravaged my heart, and they laughed hysterically. My greatest pain brought inexplicable joy to my newfound friends. I had always been a drama queen. That day, I discovered that comedy was a much better fit for me. I drove east on Route 80 and headed back to Jersey. When I got back home safe and sound, I made a beeline for Broadway. I limped into Carolines Comedy Club and signed up for my very first stand-up class.
On the same day that I discovered my destiny, Alyee’s fate was also sealed. She reunited with Cliff, they got married, and now they have five children. Alyee passed the bar with flying colors and represents the meek in court so that they can inherit the earth. She juggles it all, yet still finds time for me. She attended my TED Talk, she was one of my bridesmaids, and she flew to Jersey for my first book cover shoot. She is my own personal Jesus, and anytime I need her, she is by my side.
I may never have another funny Valentine, and that’s fine by me. All of those Valentine’s Day commercials I was force-fed over the decades of my life were wrong. You don’t need somebody to put a ring on it. I am happy to die alone and be eaten by my cat, and I am blessed and lucky to know that Alyee or one of her many offspring will make sure that doesn’t happen.