Instead of heartfelt love and passionate romance, how about a little sarcasm and halitosis?
We’re glad to announce that the Camas Public Library is staging a protest against Valentine’s Day. Adults 18 and older are invited to come occupy this public building and make a stand against the oppressive power of the greeting card and flower and dark-chocolate industries.
OK, maybe we’re getting a little overheated here. The Camas library’s “Pre-/Un-/Anti-Valentine’s Party” actually came about not because librarian and organizer Karen Nicholson doesn’t like love. Far from it; Nicholson saw firsthand just how important it is to have a sweetie when she worked as a high school librarian. The kids who didn’t have significant others were lonely and sad and jealous and irritated and just plain down on Valentine’s Day. But they really dug their own custom-made observance, “Single Awareness Day,” Nicholson said.
Now, Nicholson is translating Single Awareness Day into a fun outing for adults who might have a bit more sense of humor about the whole thing. The Camas library’s “Pre-/Un-/Anti-Valentine’s Party” will be like one great big bird flipped in the direction of romance.
“I’m going to serve all foods that give you bad breath,” Nicholson said. Like pizza with garlic and onions and pepperoni, she said.
Also, there will be homemade sugar cookies that you can write on in frosting. So-called “conversation heart” cookies are usually topped by sweet messages like “I love you” and “Be mine”; Nicholson can only imagine what sorts of endearing statements nonlovers might use to express their true feelings on Valentine’s Day. (But hey, folks, this is a library. Try to steer past gross obscenity and toward literary creativity instead.)
How else will the Camas library turn love on its head? Nicholson plans to decorate the library with the ridiculous covers of romance novels that really need new titles, she said. (So maybe “A Tender Embrace” becomes “I Can’t Breathe, You Idiot!”) Party guests can come up with appropriate names while they mingle.
And, there’ll be a non-date movie — a non-chick flick. Nicholson said she was going to go with a super-sappy Valentine’s film but then changed her mind and decided on funny instead. The library will show the 2003 Rowan Atkinson vehicle “Johnny English,” a spoof of James Bond spy thrillers.
But is it funny? “It is a bad movie,” Nicholson agreed cheerily. “Actually, it’s a terrible movie.” So get ready for some awesome audience participation. On “Pre-/Un-/Anti-Valentine’s Day,” everyone’s a critic. That should be funny indeed.
Nicholson said she’s still up for more ideas for this pointedly unromantic party. If you’ve got some heart-squashing suggestion — a really foul-smelling food to enjoy, some other smart-alecky activity to try — write to Nicholson at knicholson@cityofcamas.us.
If you mean to attend the party, please do RSVP to the library at 360-834-4692 or library@cityofcamas.us.
The party is for adults 18 and up only, Nicholson added — because sometimes when you include lonely teens in a singles party, they’re eventually discovered off in a corner someplace, paired up and necking. At least their breath would match.
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