Party time

That's right, Bellevue's Skate King, home of the graveyard soda (all sodas combined), is open the Saturday before Valentine's Day for a grown folks-only skatestravaganza. The lobby smells like feet but the rink should be smooth, lights magical, and DJ ready to play jam after unstoppable jam.

I have faith the music will be good even though I recently skated at Skate King and the DJ/recess monitor was not playing jams. I found myself rolling to Taylor Swift, dodging 7-year-olds. When a Britney Spears ballad came on, I became unsettled and had to get off the floor. Then Elton John's "Benny and the Jets" dropped and it was back to dodging kids and also the one old guy with Rollerblades and a pony tail.

Skate King was the first place I ever requested a song from a DJ. I remember skating over to the corner booth and asking for "O.P.P.," as if it wasn't already going to get played. I was in elementary school, and it must have been nineteen naughty-one/naughty-two. Skate King was probably playing "O.P.P." three or four times a night back then.

It's a pretty safe bet there will be lots of couples attending the "Valentines Skate Affair" at Skate King who also went there as kids in the '90s. But there will probably be a lot who didn't, who went to skate rinks in earlier decades. We'll all be feeling nostalgic. As soon as one hits one's 20s, the skate rink becomes old-school. It's a point Skate King hammers home with its famous mural, which looks straight out of the Seattle World's Fair, 1962.

The Space Needle, Yesler Street/Pioneer Square, the Kingdome

I'm pretty sure "O.P.P." will be played during the "Valentines Skate Affair," and to catch all generations, I'll bet the Jackson Five's "ABC" gets played, too.

Skatin'