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 Beyond the usual weddings and romantic dinners, Valentine's
Day celebrations in 2016 also are geared toward spurned
sweethearts, who have a chance to retaliate, though often to
benefit a good cause.
The "Donate Your Ex's Stuff" campaign has flooded Goodwills in
Las Vegas and Sarasota, Florida, with goods that may bring
heartache to the donor but create jobs for the needy, said
Florida's Goodwill Manasota spokeswoman Kelly Davis Strausbaugh.
"If your ex-girlfriend was always trying to dress you, you can
donate that sweater she gave you that's too painful to look at,"
Strausbaugh said on Friday.
Other donors just find the idea therapeutic.
"(We) got a call from a man who asked, 'Can I donate some dirty
socks? Because after 10 years, that’s all my ex left me,'"
Strausbaugh said.
"Name a Roach," a campaign to benefit New York's Bronx Zoo, has
been so wildly popular among rejected lovers and others that
printed naming certificates for the zoo's Madagascar hissing
cockroaches are sold out and only a digital version remains
available.
DirtyRottenFlowers.com, meanwhile, is selling an "I Love You,
Not" flower bouquet with broken stems and a teddy bear gutted of
its stuffing.
Some single Americans faced the day marked on calendars with a
heart shape by posting on Twitter under the hashtag
#ReasonWhyIDoNotHaveAValentine.
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"I'm waiting to get one after February 14th," tweeted Jared Montana
at @Jarmadillos, "when all the candy goes on sale."
"No one's allowed in my pillow fort," tweeted Ms. Em at @Emphoto21.
Those Romeos and Juliets whose relationships are still intact this
Valentine's Day may heed forecasters prediction for record-breaking
cold in the U.S. Northeast on Sunday - and decide to stay home by
the fireplace and perhaps their laptops.
Tweeting the secret to keeping passion burning will be the
longest-married Americans, John and Ann Betar, who eloped in 1932 to
avoid an arranged marriage her parents were planning. John, 104, and
Ann, 100, of Fairfield, Connecticut, are set to answer questions on
Sunday on Twitter sent to @Handy and marked #longestlove.
(Additional reporting by Scott Malone in Boston and Colleen Jenkins
in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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