At 9:00 sharp this morning my blood pressure returned to normal and my mood improved considerably.  My local NPR station's Valentine's Day Fund Drive was over.  It would be a year until I would be urged to send a significant other, or even an insignificant other, a "decadent" gift of a half dozen mammoth strawberries lasciviously swirled in a potpourri of exotic chocolates from the darkest of the dark to the whitest of the white, or a dozen lust-inducing long-stemmed red roses, either for a mere $150.00 contribution, or wonder of wonders, both for $250.00.  (Caveat emptor-the adverts are down now and I'm reciting the pledge levels by memory).  

I had heard the plea often-at least every half hour during the "short" fund drive, and each time I was assured that my love, secret or otherwise, would be delighted to know I was thinking of her (or him) and would also know I was "thinking of others" through my pledge.  

    I suppose I ought to take a micro-second to thank everyone else who pledged in the drive, thereby showing their inamoratas how much they were thinking of me.  So done!  

But wracking my brain, I couldn't come up with a single friend who wouldn't think I had gone around the bend by sending them six over-sized, over-bred, over-dipped chocolates, or the dying sexual organs of plants, no matter how long the stems.  It isn't that my friends aren't romantic: they are.  But they don't confuse conspicuous consumption with undying affection.

So I guess my subconscious was feeling a little guilty last night-I hadn't demonstrated my devotion to the darlings of NPR by sending them $250 over and above the $22.00 a month they already get out of me, and I was feeling a little guilty that the rest of NPR land wouldn't know I was thinking of them while fattening down my love with gigantic strawberries.  At that time, I got a telephone solicitation-from Oxfam America and the young man on the line first thanked me for my sustaining membership and then explained that the current economic situation had cut back on donations and simultaneously raised the price of grains and other foodstuffs they use in their good works.  He then asked me to raise my monthly pledge by $1.00. 

Now I felt guilty for real.  I hadn't upped my donation in a couple of years, and Oxfam hadn't twisted my arm to do so.  I thought it time to think of others directly, and not through ricocheted appreciation of goods appropriate to yuppie wannabes.  So - I upped my pledge by $10.00 a month, thereby loving the good folk of Oxfam directly and the population they serve by extension-and I'm sharing this with the Café habitues because, in the words of NPR, modified to reflect my personal feelings, as evidence that I'm thinking of you good folks as well. This made me feel very jolly, and it was still cheaper than posh posies would have been.

Happy Valentine's Day.