I may be a Valentine's Day scrooge, but this goes way back - 4th grade at least.

Byline: Emily Keizer 20Below News Team / The Register-Guard

IN 1929, Feb. 14 dawned with the news of the "Valentine's Day Massacre," in which Al Capone's gang killed seven rival gang members in a Chicago parking garage. Sixty-six years later, the Day of Love rang in a week of blizzards and 104 mph winds that devastated Colorado.

None of these catastrophes, however, can hold a candle to the personal hell I inhabit as soon as the calendar flips from unlucky 13 to even unluckier 14. Like Virginia, Valentine's Day is for lovers, a category that unfortunately excludes myself as well as the countless cynics who hide in their closets, cover their eyes and play Metallica at top volume to drown out the strains of a staticky, heartbroken Celine Dion.

I have never been a Valentine's Day fan. Although I own at least three red shirts, all three have been permanently relegated to a dusty bureau drawer. I dislike chocolate, have managed to kill every rose I have received, and stand out as the only girl in sixth period not to be sent a Candy-Gram.

These are more dire straits than one may realize; even in such economically dismal times, Candy-Grams - the heart-shaped cards sold by my high school's student council - are a bargain at 75 cents. In some anonymous boy's decision between a pack of Doublemint and a Candy-Gram for Emily, the rubbery pink bubbles obviously have the edge.

My mother - to whom I am worth 75 cents - often reminds me that my little Valentine's Day troubles pale in comparison to real issues.

After all, the majority of the world's population does not receive adequate meals or reasonable wages, much less a mimeographed red note from the boy who sits behind them in government class.

This does not help; I still hate Valentine's Day - and, to the disgrace of my Catholic school, good ol' Saint Valentine himself. According to legend, he married secret lovers.

And while the guy must have been a romantic, I like to think that he would stare open-mouthed at the sight of a heart-festooned, blindingly red-and-white Hallmark store.

On the last good Feb. 14, I still believed, with wide-eyed optimism, that all the owners of that Hallmark were a Mr. Mark and a Ms. Hall.

I was in fourth grade - possibly third, but definitely not fifth - and waited with happy anticipation to sign Minnie Mouse valentines and wear my red feather boa to school.

Punch and sugar cookies were a lunchtime staple, and teachers still insisted that an identical envelope be dropped into each scrappy, gluey - and, in my case, nauseatingly pink - "mailbox."

Whatever disgust I felt toward a holiday too trivial to inspire a Monday or Friday of no school was overshadowed by the lure of sugary conversation hearts and a chance for my "crush" - dubbed "Stupidity Man" in that giggly, adoring manner that only fourth- graders possess - to drop to one knee and profess his undying love.

It was only after S-Man executed his one-knee drop before the shiny-haired kindergarten teacher that Valentine's Day started to become more of a hell than a cupid-filled heaven.

Romance it seemed - after my predictions of S-Man and Miss Hair sharing a glass of Kool-Aid in the cafeteria had faded - just muddled up an otherwise equal-opportunity holiday.

A valentine for everyone, no playing favorites. Maybe that fourth-grade teacher had it right.

Although I am not what one would call a hopeless romantic, the sheer hopelessness - that Create-a-Boyfriend kit I bought in seventh grade, for example - of Valentine's Day still induces rolled eyes and a pouty lower lip.

I am infinitely more comfortable with holidays such as St. Patrick's Day, on which kissing is replaced by pinching.

On St. Patrick's Day, Victoria's Secret does not hawk lacy red underthings. Ireland does not conjure images of blue and pink Disney lovebirds. And a pinch does not require lip-to-lip contact.

The same mother who reality-checks my Valentine's Day depression also laughingly points out that my personality has the perfect makings of a bitter, unloving old woman who spends hours talking to her 16 cats - but who brands the rest of humanity as "uncommunicative."

Although it's doubtful that a half-joking distaste for romantic holidays will turn me into a recluse, my friends inform me of simple preventive measures: 10 or 12 Candy-Grams, all sent to myself - and I'll have more cheap red hearts than anyone in the room.

Emily Keizer is a senior at Marist High. She can be reached at [e-mail].