Monday, October 24, 2016

State of Emergency declared in Seattle

A state of emergency was declared by the mayor of Seattle on the afternoon of Sunday, October 16.  The mayor wisely took action after a major emotional event occurred in downtown Seattle on a large, nationally televised field of grass embellished with horizontal white lines at five yard intervals.


It was estimated that the event was witnessed by over 400,000 residents in the Seattle area.  The mayor quickly called on the National Guard to patrol the streets of Seattle to prevent a potentially unthinkable and largely unstoppable spread of emotional expressiveness throughout the Seattle metropolitan area and Puget Sound region.  Among many disastrous consequences of such a widespread show of emotion would be an unfortunate acknowledgement to the nation that Seattle residents are actually human.  


The mayor warned residents of Seattle and surrounding areas to remain indoors, turn their televisions off, and seek shelter in reading Atlas Shrugged or The Canterbury Tales to prevent the sideline event at Century Link field from triggering further emotional outbursts.   Amazon, Microsoft, the University of Washington, and other major employers in the Puget Sound region were prepared to close their doors on Monday to minimize the possibility that water cooler and other side conversations might consider the unmentionable possibility that expression of emotions is actually healthy.  Such seemingly innocuous conversations, even if scattered and localized, could lead to a widespread coup of the long standing Pacific Northwest culture which forbids emotional expressiveness in favor of intellectual prowess and economic expansion.

Scientists at the University of Washington confirmed on Sunday, after considering a limited set of data that suited their agenda, that expressing emotions at a consistent and intentional level was statistically unlikely to produce significant gains in economic or intellectual advancement for which the city of Seattle is nationally and internationally regarded.     Given the potential downsides of an ensuing culture coup, these researchers recommended that actions be taken to further stigmatize the expression of emotions in the Pacific Northwest. 

With any luck, the impact of Sunday's event at Century Link will be limited to the sports world, specifically to the poor, afflicted Seattle Seahawks who were subsequently forced to spend the entire week deflecting local and national media attention regarding the sideline outburst of one of their most talented players.   Such media attention understandably took precedence over discussions of how the team could advance its performance and position in the NFC west. 

In related news, the approximate 15,240 transplanted southerners living in the Puget Sound region, were found in sidewalks, parks, and other public spaces on Sunday evening, in various states of laughing and giggling.   Their seeming lack of concern for the seriousness of the situation triggered some observers to make anti-Southern statements that linked the consumption of chicken fried steak as well as biscuits and gravy to emotionally expressive moments and similar behaviors regarded as inappropriate in the great PNW.  

A quick review of  the eating habits of Richard Sherman (the Seahawks cornerback who triggered this crisis) confirmed that Mr. Sherman had neither looked at or consumed chicken fried steak or biscuits and gravy for approximately 47 months before Sunday's incident. As a result, some question whether Mr. Sherman may be genetically predisposed to expressing emotions as a result of his chronic passion for his craft.  Many years in the spotlight of the Pacific Northwest have not ousted these emotional tendencies from Mr. Sherman's psyche.  As a result of his success and resulting evidence that invoking emotion in one's career can be a good thing, it is with some regret that the leaders of Western Washington must now consider that a coup of PNW culture designed to drastically increase and favor emotional expressiveness may very well be appropriate, healthy, and productive to the region's national stature.


Or, according to those laughing southerners in the streets and parks of Seattle, such a coup might simply be... AWESOME! 

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