When I was on the student council in high school, Valentine’s Day was less about love and more about fundraising. Romance was secondary. Profit margins were primary.

We would gather in our advisor’s classroom early on Monday mornings and hash out plans that we thought must have been cutting edge. 

That’s how “Flower Grams” were born.

For a small fee, you could send a large, artificially colored carnation to anyone in the school. The flowers were dyed in shades not normally found in nature – radioactive pink, nuclear orange, and something that might have once been blue. You could also send them anonymously, which turned out to be both a marketing genius move and an ethical gray area.

Many romances began with those carnations. Many others, pardon the pun, “arose” into full-blown soap operas. Nothing spices up third period Algebra like watching someone receive three anonymous flowers and then trying to figure out which one is from their actual boyfriend.

Of course, my buddy and me used this power for good. 

By “good,” I mean pranks.

We once pooled our mowing and carryout-boy wages to send a large carnation to a friend who was being pursued by a girl he wasn’t particularly interested in. We sent him a sweet anonymous note signed with her name. 

And because we were thorough, she also received a note from him.

We were 15. Good judgment was not yet a part of our lives and we coulda used a good kick in the pants.

The prank did not end well. There were hurt feelings. We felt terrible. It was one of those “life lesson” moments adults talk about.

We did manage to laugh a little – even if it was stifled with no sound.

But here’s the twist: about a year later, the two of them started dating.

So apparently we were not just pranksters. We were relationship consultants ahead of our time.

The following year, student council decided to embrace technology. We had everyone fill out a compatibility survey. It asked deep, meaningful questions like “What is your favorite color?” and “Do you like pizza?” and “Cyndi Lauper or Joan Jett?” 

Then we fed the answers into a cutting-edge computer program.

By “cutting-edge,” I mean it ran on floppy disks and punched cards of some kind.

The computer spit out each student’s top five most compatible matches and lists were printed up and sold back to the students.

Again, this did not end well.

Two girls had me ranked as their number one match. To this day, I’m not sure what answers I gave that made a machine decide, “Yes. This is destiny.” 

One of the girls called me, and we had a nice, normal conversation about how funny the whole thing was.

The other took it as a binding legal contract.

She sat with me at lunch. She found me in the hallways. She appeared beside me like we were a couple. For a solid week, I felt like I was starring in a made-for-TV movie.

Now in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have complained. There were seasons in my pre-marriage life when I might have appreciated that level of enthusiasm. But at the time, it was unsettling.

Especially because I had been on a few dates with a girl from a neighboring town. One night, we were spotted at Dairy Queen by my Number One Match. After that sighting, I was swiftly demoted from “soulmate” to “never mind.”

Whew.

And who was my number one? Who had the top slot on my list?

Ironically, it was a girl I’d quietly had a crush on for quite some time. This seemed promising – until you factor in two minor details: she was painfully shy and academically superhuman.  

I’m also not too sure she knew my name.

She was the kind of student who not only answered the bonus questions correctly but probably found errors in the textbook. She was our valedictorian. I, on the other hand, was best known for laughing too loudly and hearing the phrase, “If Mark would just apply himself.”

I did not have terrible grades. I simply specialized in the neighborhood of “try a little harder and you might eek your way past average.”

One day in history class, I mustered up courage. I saw her looking at her computer print out, which surprised me; she usually didn’t spend any time on frivolous matters.  I casually (and by casually I mean far too enthusiastically) said, “Hey! Am I number one on your list? You’re number one on mine!”

She looked at me as if I had just announced I planned to major in clown studies. She didn’t look me in the eye, but stared at my list, which had been crumpled in my pocket.

I asked again. She slowly scanned her own paper (which looked showroom new and not crumpled) as though it required translation. Then, without saying a word, she shook her head no.

I managed a quick glance at her list. Her top five appeared to consist of upperclassmen with high GPAs and what I can only assume were fast cars and promising futures.

Still, I maintain I was probably number six on her list.  If the list had gone on past number 5, I would surely have appeared in the top 20.

There must have been something there. I mean, how else does a floppy disk determine destiny?

Technology. Who needs it?