This past week I’ve lost count of how many times I have been faced with this ‘special’ question. Even this morning at the organic store while getting my free range organic eggs (now these are indeed special) the cashier popped the question: “Doing something special for Valentine’s day?” I was very tempted to use the Socratic method to probe this young man (couldn’t be older than 22) into the impossible definition of special, but I just wanted to go home and have my eggs so I said: “Nope.”

Unfortunately, he was the one that wanted to probe further: “Nothing at all?”

His insistence surprised me, as he knew nothing about the status of my love life. So once again I was very tempted to say something like “Well my boyfriend dumped me two days ago, so I am staying home watching a romantic movie, eating junk food and crying my eyes out” or even better “My husband run away with our 25-year-old babysitter and took all our money with him, so I am spending the day figuring out if I have to sell our house in order survive.” But again, all I could think of were nice warm scrambled eggs so I just replied with what I thought was a straight forward answer: “No, I am anti-Valentine’s day.”

Well you guessed it, he wasn’t satisfied with that answer either. “But what does that mean? And why?”

All week I have replied to this annoying ‘special’ question with “We are spending the day together at home” only to see disappointment on people’s faces. I am guessing that if I said “We are paying specially inflated prices to have dinner in an especially over-crowded restaurant while watching if the other special couples around us look like having as much of a special time as we are” would be a more appropriate answer.

Maybe it is the former-marketer in me who can’t stand the commercialization of days like this, maybe it is the rebellious side of me who refuses to do what’s expected, maybe it is just the cynical part of me who thinks that acts of love on this day do not really count because they are expected or maybe it’s just the romantic in me who thinks that doing something special on a least expected occasion is by far much more special.

Sorry to disappoint you young man, but spending time with each other at home is indeed very special.

Now can I have my eggs please?