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Valentine’s Day. A time of love and relationships, both new and old. A time of chocolates and confessions of love. Light hearted banter rules the day, and passion has taken over the night hours. As you lay there, next to the one you love, suddenly you remember that you left the garage door open, and the keys to the car are in the ignition and that all of the lights are on in the garage and that just last night your neighbor’s car was stolen. From their garage. You look at your sweetheart, she smiles at you and whispers, ‘Happy Valentine’s Day honey…”
Your thoughts bounce back and forth between the garage and he smile, and the sudden twinkle in her eyes and then she winks at you! But the car is about to be carnapped! Then the totally unexpected, ‘I am so happy you remembered to close up the garage. Especially after what happened to Henry and Marge last night. I just love you!’
Oh my God! She knows I left the door open, the keys in the car, and all of the lights on! I am so dead. ‘Uhhu. Yep, for sure honey. I love you too.’ you whisper your upper lip quivering. She taps your nose and smiles again. Her demeanor changes and she sits up in bed. Do you know why we celebrate Valentine’s Day my darling?’ You are terrified! But how does this have anything to do with downstairs. Go with it, you say to yourself. “No, but you are going to tell me, right?’
‘Yes dear. I am going to tell you about a Roman goddess called Lupercalia who Valentine’s Day was actually inspired by. See, she was an ancient she-wolf goddess who was a very demanding deity. She needed her followers to sacrifice to her,’ she says. ‘These were her roses and boxes of chocolates.’ She says. You have a feeling this is going to be very long story, and that you are going to be really screwed if it is. You had to get to the garage! As far as you knew, the car could be half way to Mexico by now. ‘Anyway, Lupercalia was not an easy goddess to serve. She was pretty demanding and was even known to have a bad temper if she didn’t get what she wanted,’ your sweetheart gently caresses your cheek. ‘If that happened, it was more likely she would insist that the goats and dogs be replaced with one or two of her male followers,’ she whispers.
‘Oh yeah! She knows that the car is a sitting duck just fifteen feet below your bed.’
What do you do? Do you tell her you forget to do all those things you just let her believe you did? Even though she knows you didn’t? Or do you man up, and face Lupercalia head on?
You haven’t got a chance in the universe to make this right. So, you curl over, put your hand on her shoulder and do your best impression of a barking goat. She looks at you with fire in her eyes, and her lips begin shaking, and her hand comes up from under the covers of the bed. She smiles and starts laughing as she tosses the car keys onto the night stand. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day darling!’ she blurts out in unstoppable laughter. ‘Gottcha!’ she whispers kissing you.
