For the small, inbreeding population of Whitman students who are in happy relationships, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity for partners to celebrate each other and acknowledge their inherent superiority over the rest of the student population. For most other Whitman students, though, Valentine’s Day is only a consumer-supported reminder of their loneliness and disappointment with the conventions of Whitman’s “dating scene.”

While committed Whitties make restaurant reservations and consider shaving various areas of their bodies, and single Whitties prepare to throw food and rocks at the few happy couples on campus, senior Pete Boroughs has his own unusual designs for Valentine’s Day this year. The part-time student and ultimate Frisbee player confessed that his long-standing obsession with the music of St. Louis R&B artist Nelly has recently returned to him. This renewed fascination with Nelly’s musical styling and videography could not have come at a more consequential time.

“I’ve been watching a lot of Nelly’s music videos recently. In fact, last week was ‘Nelly Week.’ Usually I take some time to watch some rounds of Magic: the Gathering, but I can’t stop thinking about how much I need a Tip Drill this Valentine’s Day,” Boroughs said.

Nelly, an artist known for his dubious portrayals of women as much as his delightfully catchy music and misspelled song titles, was recently reported to have appeared in nearly every hip-hop music video from 2000-2006. When asked what he had planned for Valentine’s Day, Boroughs pointed to the obvious appeal of Nelly’s lifestyle.

“This is what I always dreamed of as a 14-year-old,” Boroughs said, pulling up the music video to “Hot in Herre” on his computer. “I think it’s about time that this dream comes true.” On the screen, a slutty referee mimed taking her slutty referee shirt off, sweat dripping from her jiggly bits.

Nelly’s music videos invariably feature a cadre of muscular black men who roam around clubs in slow motion, hugging other muscular black men or stopping to objectify well-formed, scantily-clad women who seem hopelessly attracted to men with doo-rags and band-aids under their left eyes.

Boroughs remembers how slighted he felt on Valentine’s Day in eighth grade, when an adoring girl gave him a box of chocolates and a really nice note: “No booty pops. No gold chains. No Air Force Ones. It was like she had no idea what Valentine’s Day was actually about.”

When asked how he intended to prepare for this year’s Valentine’s Day, Boroughs cited a long list of items he would need: enormous football jerseys for him and his friends to wear backwards, headbands, $500 Air Jordans, somewhere between 35 and 40 bottles of Patron Tequila, bubble bath, a bathtub and lots of dollar bills. Much of this he figures to acquire from Jewett Hall’s games closet.

“And of course, it ain’t no fun unless we all get some,” Boroughs concluded, swiping his Whitman ID card downwards in the air, as if one of many voluptuous, invisible women in his room would begin shaking her invisible apple booty in his face.