Dear family,
As you know doubt know, the city of Seattle is under siege by thousands of toe-cheese cultivating hippy test-tube babies. As your correspondent here, I’m obligated to report back and tell you of the subversive measures I have had to take to get to and from work these days.
This morning, as I meandered down the hill to catch the bus, weary-eyed revolutionaries with ruffled hair and dulled bandanas were beginning to collect at the political epicenter of this anti-gene-therapy neighborhood. Wading through several small self-contained wafts of sensimilla, I found myself at the very heart of this carefully orchestrated follow-up to Woodstock ’99 – the pinball alley. Huddled in corners and picking up evergreen and greyish blue sleeping bags (mostly of the square shaped variety) were dozens (and more inside) of the excitable farm boys and girls you’ve no doubt seen on the news. I ducked my head and crawled my way out under the pin-ball machines so as not to attract attention to my fancy new shoes (hiking boots, as is the style among Redmond conservative yuppies). Once in the clear, I continued on my path, crossing the street illegally, which in usual times would stop every car for a few hundred meters in either direction for 30 seconds or more.
Oddly enough, the cars did not stop for me today. Once downtown, across the street from my bus stop, I again had to use my out of practice positioning skills to circumnavigate the line of friendly talkative folk holding a banner (written on it was something I didn’t comprehend about “WTO” and human genes in potatos) blocking my destination from my site. I picked the lint from my behind, threw it to the ground, and then pushed my way around to the bus stop.
Immediately upon my arrival a discreetly clad bearded fellow with the latest short-distance walkie talkie hidden in his sleeve began agitating the collection of Microsoft employees assembled there. Without causing a fuss and attracting attention, he began spreading around small hints about the move we were going to make to foil the would-be anti-Microsoft demonstrators who were headed our way. I hadn’t seen this breed of demonstrator, of course, but looked up the hill which I had just come down, and there saw about 400 friendly talkative folks waving to me with signs about brocolli, McDonalds, labor rights of canadians, the Eschelon NSA plot, and other interesting advertisements.
It was obvious that we weren’t getting to work the usual way. Under the lead of the altruistic bearded man, we made a break for it towards the waving crowd, which was wise because it threw them off guard. Thanks to the walkie talkie, a bus pulled up directly ahead of us out of a side road, and we scrambled on quickly. The bus, hardly stopped, took off in the opposite of our usual direction, leaving behind a cloud of evaporated tire, and went further downtown and then back around to a different entrance onto the highway. In the distance I could see the cops descending into the chaos with their helmets, body armor, and smiling batons.
Working late into the evening, I waited a half-hour for the bus back to downtown. Once clear of local Redmond traffic and at a half-way point between Lake Washinton and downtown, the bus driver abruptly pulled off the road. He stood up and just when I thought he was going to expose the automatic weapon, he said, “Listen up folks, as hmmm, excuse me, as most of you know already, downtown is in a state of war right now. The police have enforced a curfew of 7:00 [it was 8:30 at the time] and are pepper-spraying and tackling down, arresting anyone on the streets.” We then went into a question and answer session followed by democratical elections in the western tradition of guides who would show the confused people what other means of transportation were available to service their destinations. I was able to gather enough information to know that I could hop onto a bus going to the negroid no-mans-land near my neighborhood. The bus would then make special undocumented turns away from the negros to bring the gays and Microsoft yuppies to a point somewhat near my destination. But once en route, I could tell there were moles on our bus charting the route with GPS transceivers linked to their buddies further down the line. A carefully planned ploy happend after a few stops – a group of protesters in disguise on the bus began yelling and then pushed open the doors and ran off screaming down the street. But I immediately took it for what it was – a magicians trick of distracting our attention away from the real masterminds still on the bus, so I discreetly got off on the next stop. Walking the ways through the drizzle down Broadway, the shopping/coffee area, the employees of The Gap, in disregard of the police who were protecting the airwaves with their sirens, were making a final desperate attempt to board up their windows and doors with 3-inch particle board; and the cafes and newspaper shop, which I frequent were all unexpectedly shut down.
But it was when I saw the white trash man get out of his pick-up truck only to find Eileens, the bar for his type, closed for the night, that I knew that the worst was over.