5 Ways to Get Back at Your Ex and Celebrate Being Single on Valentine's Day

Rest assured that there are plenty of ways for embittered haters to participate in Valentine's Day too. Here are five possibilities:

Name a Cockroach After Your Ex
The San Francisco Zoo has a couple of unusual Valentine's Adopt-an-Animal specials for those eager to get over a relationship gone bad. For a donation of as little as $25, the zoo is encouraging spurned lovers to adopt either a Giant Hairy Scorpion or a Hissing Cockroach and name it after one's ex. "Nothing says 'I've moved on' like adopting a giant cuddly cockroach in the name of your favorite ex," the zoo's sales pitch states. "With a little luck, this generous donation will release your bad love life karma so that you never have to encounter a cockroach again."

After adopting and naming one of these creatures, zoo patrons are given the opportunity to enter the names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails of anyone they'd like to notify about the event. Hmmm… now who might you want to tell?

Machine Gun Memories of Your Ex
The new "Just Divorced" Experience from a Sin City-area shooting range called Machine Guns Vegas welcomes customers to fire a choice of automatic weapons at items from their old relationship, "including (but not limited to) wedding dresses, tuxes, and marriage certificates." The package, which is available starting February 14 for a limited time, costs $499 for up to four guests, and comes with 40 rounds of ammunition and transportation to and from the range.

The owner of Machine Guns Vegas—who, believe it or not is named Genghis Cohen "because his father admired Genghis Khan," according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal—said that while most personal articles are fair game for blowing away, there are restrictions: “They’re not allowed to shoot a picture. They can do it privately, but if a nut job shoots a husband or wife in the light of day, we don’t want to be involved in a lawsuit.”

Donate Stuff from Your Ex to Charity
Instead of blowing mementos of your old relationship to bits, you could do some good with them by participating in Donate Your Heartbreak, a program from WebThriftStore.com. The New York City-based site is asking people to consider donating gifts and other valuables. It will sell the items online and turn over 80% of each sale to one of five dozen charities.

Jewelry is a particularly popular category for "Heartbreak" donations, and one participant explained to the Daily News why it was so easy to hand over a watch that was given to him by his ex. "The gift was 'you're always running behind so I thought I'd buy you a watch,'" he said. "I think at that point I knew most of the sugar is gone from this relationship."

Send Some Hate Mail
Valentine's Day isn't just for proclamations of love. It's also a fine time for unleashing other kinds of feelings—like how much you loathe your ex or Valentine's Day in general. Luckily, there are virtual and physical cards out there allowing celebrants to issue forth all these messages and more.

The Just Wink greeting card company boasts Valentine's cards with messages such as "Besties Before Testes" and "Most Guys Are A******," the latter slogan encapsulated in an oversized pink heart. Someecards, meanwhile, offers a dizzying number of funny and quirky messages to be shared in mock celebration of the holiday, including "This is the most special of the estimated one billion cards that will be sent this Valentine's Day" and one intended especially for exes: "It's not you, it's someone else better than you."

Party at an Anti-Valentine's Event
No matter if you hate your ex or simply detest how forced and fake the Hallmark holiday of Valentine's Day can seem, you'll be welcomed at the many anti-Valentine's dinners, happy hours, and parties happening around the country. Anti-Valentine's themed events have been popping up for years, particularly in cities with large populations of young people. This year, there are plenty of options for Valentine's haters in Dallas, Portland, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and beyond.

Some anti-Valentine's events are basically just drink specials (with festive and colorful names like the X-Boyfriend), while others are mixers for those eager to get back into the game, and still others award prizes for people willing to share their worst "dumped" stories. Perhaps most unusual of all, a radio station in Wisconsin is hosting an Anti-Valentine's Gaming Party. What better way to celebrate singlehood and make your ex jealous than by playing Mario Cart for hours on end? Or something. Plus, it's a benefit for the Make a Wish Foundation.