The Tales of a Flustering Valentina

Born on January 29th, in a small city in Mexico our heroine burst out from her mother’s womb, 6 hours into labor, ready to face the world. The nurse, overworked and tired, runs out “It’s a boy!” she shouts and returns to clean the baby as the family waiting outside erupts in shouts of joy. Exactly 10 minutes later the attending doctor walks out with a baby girl. With all the corruption in Mexico the family is skeptical and demands to know why they were told the baby was a boy but bring out a girl. The doctors are quick to reassure the family that there were no other babies born on the same day and upon further investigation they arrive to the conclusion that when they picked up the baby she had a bit of poo stuck to her bottom, not to mention she was a little hairy thing, and therefore the tired nurse got confused. Relieved and happy the family decide to name her Valentina, a name meaning bravery and strength, a name for a brave soldier. She has always felt this name was an oxymoron, and that it cursed her to be faced with many embarrassing tales.

We fast forward to the age of two, Valentina has learned how to walk and is curious about everything. She stares as her mother sits by her vanity and applies her lotion and makeup before picking her up and heading out for the day. Young Valentina watches and wistfully dreams of the day she would get to play with all those toys. As ‘luck’ would have it, one day her mother is late for work and leaves the bottle of lotion near the edge of her vanity. Thinking Valentina is asleep, she runs downstairs to make a quick breakfast before waking her up to leave for daycare. It took Valentina all but five minutes, quick and as quiet as a mouse, she takes the lotion and proceeds to smear it ALL OVER her face. You can imagine the shock and dismay her mother felt when she came back to find two small eyes peering up at her under piles of white lotion. As any good mother would do, she takes a picture of her daughter to be used later as payback for making her late and costing her $25 dollars’ worth of product.

Valentina is now in the fist grade. Every day she walks to the bus with her older cousins who live right next door. She would continuously ask them questions on the way to the bus stop because they were fifth graders and knew everything of course. Her favorite questions were about strange things she would see near her house and how to say them in English to impress her classmates. “What is that called?” she asked for the millionth time pointing to a large globe held up by a tube. Her cousin, annoyed, turns to look and then smiles wickedly. “That’s called a penis.” She nods and saves it in her collection of newly learned words. Later that week they go on a field trip and she gleefully shouts at the top of her lungs “Look a penis!” The entire bus gasps and the teacher walks up to her angrily. She’ll never forget the heat she felt on her cheeks as she sat in the office while they call her parents and after being chastised for a solid hour, she vowed never to say that word again.

Intermediate school (5th and 6th grade) should be one of the best years of your life. Sadly, for Valentina, she wishes she could erase those awful years. We start in the second semester of her 5th year in school. Since she was very little, Valentina was never able to contain her bladder. After a busy day of DCA testing and physical exams, she had drunk nearly an entire bottle of water and couldn’t wait until her usual bathroom break. She asked her teacher who told her no because they were about to switch classrooms, so she ran to her next teacher. Much to her dismay the teacher also said no because they needed to take attendance. Finally, after 15 excruciating minutes she could go, only to find out that the bathrooms were closed for cleaning. Anxious she runs to the hallway to try to go to the bathroom but halfway there she could feel she wouldn’t make it and crashed to the floor with a yelp. Everyone who heard came to witness the poor sobbing girl, with pee flowing down her pants. That day she had to wait a whole two hours until her mom could bring her freshly cleaned clothes. That wouldn’t be the only time she would need clothes though, the next year her mom also got called in due to a big red stain on the back of her pants.

Finally, we get to High school, a time of maturity and romance. She would put all those embarrassing childish moments behind her and blossom into a proper young lady. Enter her Fifteenth birthday. Her parents throw her a beautiful sweet fifteen party, that would be forever engraved in the memories of all those who were present. From her falling during one of the dances, to the slide show of all her baby photos (including the one where she smeared her mom’s lotion) ending with the grand finally of stepping on her beautiful dress and accidentally flashing the whole party. She was able to outgrow that embarrassing party, only to be embarrassed yet again when the second most important party for a teenager rolled around: prom. She had been talking to a young man, who then decided that the best way to do a promposal would be to do a slideshow during lunch time. It would have been perfectly romantic, except that he includes a photo she sent him in her pajamas. He meant nothing by it, thinking she looked cute, but the whole cafeteria irrupted in laughter and began whistling and hooting. Once the heat she felt in her face passed, she forgave the young man and accepted to go to prom with him… only to fall flat on her face at the dance.

It’s nearly the end of our story and we join Valentina for her College life. From falling asleep and snoring loudly in class, to accidentally including a private picture in her slideshow, there is no limits to the moments that University witnessed. Then came her graduation day, dressed in a flowy skirt she hurriedly goes to the bathroom so she wouldn’t have to wait for hours until the ceremony ended. Once she exits the restroom, she notices all eyes are on her. She smiles brightly as she makes her way to pick up her cap and gown, feeling beautiful and elegant. When she gets to the front, the attending professor’s grin falls right off. “Your skirt” she tells her. Valentina brightly responds, “I know I love it, I bought it at Ross.” The professor shakes her head and quietly repeats “Look at your skirt” Valentina shakes her head in confusion, it’s a pretty, decent sized skirt, what could be wrong? Slightly frustrated the teacher steps forward to Valentina’s side and pulls the skirt down. Without noticing, Valentina had accidentally tucked the back side of her skirt into her underwear.

This was the story of my lovely wife Valentina. I’ve known her for a total of 8 years now. As a matter of fact, I was the young man with the prom-posal, and ever since I’ve met her, my life has been full of love and lots of laughter. So much laughter, that during our vows she was almost incapable of saying them because she accidentally dropped her ring and couldn’t contain her laughter. I look forward to the many more stories she and I will create together. Whether they are filled with love, pain, laughter or even embarrassment; I’m thankful for every second and of course we don’t regret a single moment.