BOBBLE TIKI: RAGE AGAINST THE VALENTINE >>>

Satan has taken over earth. And he’s arrived in the shape of a candy heart. Or a paper heart. Or a heart-shaped balloon clutched by a smiling miniature teddy bear.

Valentine’s Day is possibly the worst idea ever â€" for humanity, that is. If you’re in retail or marketing or flowers, it’s a godsend. (Huh. That’s funny: a god-sent Satan.) Bobble Tiki has said it before and he'll say it again: It’s all a finely orchestrated plot to part you with your money, and your self-respect.

Bobble Tiki didn’t always feel this way. When he was a younger tiki, Valentine’s meant building homemade cards out of red construction paper and doilies. It was time Bobble Tiki looked forward to spending with his siblings and his mom. The muse danced happily around that dinner table; helping each of us tikis design a card that could be efficiently re-created 30 times, one for each class member.

It’s been a few years since those days; luckily Bobble Tiki has spent most of them in a committed relationship. And we don’t celebrate Valentine’s.

Why not? Well, why would we? To show each other our love? We do that every day â€" with text messages, Facebook wall moments and long talks about minute details of each others’ lives. To show each other extra-special love? Anyone involved in a relationship should know that if you only do that once a year, you’re not going to be in that relationship for long.

But of course, V-Day isn't all bad. Because everyone knows that right under the cheap veneer of Valentine's Day mega-marketing and hollow churchly romance is yet another delicious excuse to have more sex and indulge in fleshly pleasures and lick chocolate syrup off your lover's tailbone. Hopefully.

These days, it seems like nobody wants to be single. And truly, after a while the one-night stands, blind dates and online encounters get a little old. For singles looking to change their status, consider the Flirt Party tonight in The Hub's Events Space and Gallery.

The ogling kicks off at 9 p.m. with gag gifts, door prizes, spin the bottle and more surrounded by house music by the Ocean Grooves team: DJ dAb, Mr. Clean, DJ Cypers. There isn't a cover. Premium wells and microbrews are only $3.

As always, Bobble Tiki doesn’t care what you tonight because he doesn’t even know you.  And unless you enjoy these Valentine confections â€" Vicks Crème Delight, Disgruntled Hershey’s Employee Hepatitis Crème, Lepermint, Sour Cream and Bunion, Caramelanoma, Crunchy Left Nut Cluster, and Ashtray Patties â€" then Bobble Tiki is certain he doesn’t want to meet you.  Besides, it’s time to blow this joint and prepare for the love process as Bobble Tiki so wants to believe in a day of love, and so wants to rage against the love machine, and so wants to eat an entire box of love chocolates, and so wants to gag himself with a heart-shaped plastic straw and subsequently spew said chocolates onto something meaningful or expensive.

[The Hub's Event Space and Gallery, Friday, Feb. 13, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., no cover, 203 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.683.4606]