This month I learned some new vocabulary while perusing the Facebook groups. For example, did you know that bean soup can mean something other than a soup made out of beans?
We have this post:
I had no idea what this meant, so I looked it up. The origin is that a woman made a TikTok video explaining her recipe for bean soup. In the comments, a bunch of people asked questions like, “I don’t like beans, what can I use instead of beans?” So she made a second video about how people on the internet sidetrack conversations by making things about themselves. So now “Bean Soup” has become shorthand for “making the comments about yourself.”
I get why someone would post this. Our comment threads veer off into solipsism at times, and people often bring their own bugbears to every conversation, like, for example, blaming parents for their bad child-rearing anytime anyone does something wrong.
Here we have exhibit A:
Note that the post is about how people should pick up their own garbage. Let’s check in with our commenters to see if they are offering to install a garbage can.
One person says, “Vashon parents! You should be reminding your Vashon kids this type of stuff doesn’t belong here. Maybe you forgot?”
I love how they think it’s kids leaving beer boxes, cigarette butts, and shoddy Ikea organization supplies on the beach. Like kids are using an old igloo cooler and a pizza box to make sandcastles.
Another person adds, “Good luck with getting through to their parents. Those kids didn’t lick it off the grass. Same kids, same cars, always leaving every bit of their trash. It’s an honest to God shame.”
I had never heard the phrase “don’t lick it off the grass” before, except in the literal sense when I was a kid and dropped my ice cream cone. Apparently it means ‘picked up a trait from your parents’ as opposed to ‘picked up a trait from the fungus that grows on grass and turns ants into zombies.’
Someone has a suggestion for the parents who aren’t letting their kids lick enough grass: “Vashon parents should routinely take their teenagers to the beaches with trash bags and teach them to clean up the beaches. Grades aren’t the only important lessons.”
I would like to remind the posters that the age for buying alcohol and cigarettes is 21, which is, as best I can tell, a number above the teens.
So the post about beach garbage got bean-souped by people who hate other people’s parenting.
As a side note, if you name something Crow Beach, expect trinkets to show up. Is the name ironic? I’m not sure. But apparently, I’m not the only one with questions about what irony is.
The first comment on the post says, “That’s not irony.”
The poster clarifies, “I was drinking coffee on my way to work. Someone pulled out carelessly, causing me to spill my coffee. Then that same person, the cause of my coffee disaster, pulled into a coffee stand right afterward. That’s a textbook example of situational irony you fucking idiot.”
I’ve never been good at recognizing irony, a deficit I blame on Alanis Morissette.
I’ve decided to educate myself by skimming a Wikipedia article on the topic. So, what are the types of irony?
Situational irony is when the outcome of a situation is opposite what you would expect. It can also include situations where the consequences of your actions are the opposite of what you intended. Situational irony is like when there’s a black fly in your chardonnay that you’re drinking at the tse-tse fly eradication gala.
Verbal irony is essentially sarcasm, where you say the opposite of what you mean. Verbal irony would be saying “Well, isn’t this nice” while your plane crashed down. This is basically the only way in which I communicate. Every day is Opposite Day for me.
Dramatic irony is when the audience is aware of something that the characters on stage are not. An example of dramatic irony would be a “No Smoking” sign on your cigarette break that you can’t see because it is too high up, but it is visible to others. This type of irony is not relevant to this situation, unless you were driving on a stage, which would be a bigger problem than spilling coffee.
Maybe it was cosmic irony- a situation where the gods themselves intervene to fuck with your shit. Or maybe it was just a congruency- a cause that rhymed with the effect.
It’s like ten thousand spoon(fuls of coffee in your lap) when all you need is a knife (to stab the tires of bad drivers).
So was it ironic when a coffee spilled all over this poor, hapless, tailgating soul? I don’t know. Did you just read six paragraphs hoping to come out with a definition of irony, only to discover the author doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about? Well, well, well, isn’t that something.
Putting aside our quibble with the poster’s vocabulary, we also need to impugn their character. One commenter says, “Hear me out for a second: take accountability for your role in the outcome instead of blaming others. Blaming others for your bad driving is what got you to where you are. THATS IRONIC.”
Another persson says, “It was probably you, driving that fucking hooptie and goosed it out onto the highway without looking.” I had to look up hooptie, which turns out to be slang for a busted up car.
I love that American English has multiple words for a car in bad shape that range in connotation from affectionate to derogatory: jalopy, beater, clunker, junker, hooptie, lemon, wreck. You could even add Island Car to that list.
We must also play our part as attorney for the accused, who is not present in the argument. One person says, “In their defense, they had not had their coffee yet ; )”
And speaking of driving poorly, we have this terrifying tale:
I did a quick calculation on scrap paper and found:
13.7 miles in 12 minutes is 68.5 mph.
Good thing you didn’t hit a deer; you would’ve launched it into space.
This person is obviously a monster who should not be given attention for their bad actions. So we bean-soup the comments and make it about us.
One commenter says, “Yeah next time someone feels stuck behind my brick of a cargo van, remember I might just be saving you from this person!” They used their hooptie to bean soup. (I’m practicing my new vocabulary!)
Another person turns it into a hate-fest, and, instead of hating parents, they hate the children themselves. They say, “Great, another Gen Z/Alpha that can’t tell time bragging about being stupid.”
Side note, Gen Alpha are people ages 0 to 15, so it’s unlikely one of them was driving. Another person points out that if we’re going to be prejudiced against people based on age, we should direct that prejudice at our parents. They say, “weird to assume and blame gen Z and Gen Alpha for this. Sounds way more like something my boomer father would do.”
One person puts it into perspective for us. They say, “I bet this is how Han Solo felt when he told the story of making the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs.”
Some are skeptical. One says, “Is this what they call a Tall Tale?”
I don’t know. Maybe it’s irony?
The original poster replies, “I would send you the dash cam footage but you’d probably be a Tattle Tale.”
Maybe next time the driver will hit a coyote and help rid the island of their menacing yips and eerie whines.
We get this fascinating info in the comments: “Coyotes, unlike wolves, disperse when a member has been killed, and then all the females go into heat. Thus you create a population explosion. The more the USDA and others try to exterminate the coyotes the more they prosper. Leave them alone. They usually have a life span of less than 5 years, and half the pups die the first year. Let nature run its course instead of shooting everything that moves.”
Others say that the coyotes are good, actually. One says, “Whenever you complain about coyotes here on Vashon-Maury islands, just remember that they are the best rat and mice control we have. Feral cats, and cats left outside are killing our bird life at alarming numbers nationwide. So coyotes are just keeping nature in balance. BTW, a small cat or dog is easy hunting for a bald eagle, hawk or owl.”
But some disagree. One commenter responds, “There has been a rodent explosion and the coyotes are not doing much to control them. Mice and voles ate my pea and bean plants, ate seedlings in my greenhouse and infested my raised beds. I’ve had to put out traps for the first time ever.”
Clearly you need more coyotes. Just kill the lead male and you’ll get an explosion of them.
We also have this comment: “I hate how many there are!!! Makes me so scared for our pet deer/squirrels and animals!”
And speaking of predators, there’s a cougar on the island again, so be sure to keep a close eye on your pet deer/squirrels.
But worse even than these two apex predators is a third, more terrifying animal.
The first comment is: “¡jumiles!”
When someone responded with a gif of bouncing question marks, the commenter linked to an article about how healthy and nutritious it is to eat jumiles, which are stink bugs.
They do look kinda yummy. I bet if you fried them and sprinkled them with salt they’d be amazing, like a thick potato chip. And they couldn’t taste worse than the limited edition ‘all dressed’ flavor chips my husband brought home from Mom’s Deli one day, which tasted like every conceivable salad dressing mixed together in a used spittoon.
Maybe you could put jumiles in bean soup that you eat while sitting in your hooptie.
We get the following advice on how to handle the stink bugs, “Just remember- if you squash or scare them, they emit a yucky scent that attracts dozens more; wipe off any surfaces they touch with lavender oils(window sills esp.)to repel them.”
To hell with that. I’m gonna eat them. It’s like free candy.
Also, it sounds like they’ve developed the same strategy as coyotes- if you kill one of us, the rest will multiply.
One person says, “Vacuum them up.”
To which someone responds, “NO NO NO!!!!!Speaking from experience. Now every time I turn on my vacuum my house reeks of cilantro…I used to love cilantro but not anymore.”
Wait, they smell like cilantro? You could add them to chimichurri.
Another person suggests, “Soapy bowl with lid. Drop them in and drown them.”
Counterpoint: wok.
Others don’t kill. They catch and release. “They are easy to carefully pick up and put outside.”
But that poses a problem. As one person points out, “And then, they’ll come right back in! Same way they got in in the first place…”
Another person is adamant not to save them. “If we see ’em they die ! High pressure water! Inside they get swirlie funerals.”
This is the bug equivalent of a viking funeral.
But they are intrepid creatures. One person notes, “I’ve had them float and survive the flush! I squish and then flush.”
Another person, who’s likely drooling at the picture and imagining dipping them in butter sauce, says, “so pretty…”
You know what’s worse than stink bugs in your house? Stuff left in school fields. We have this post:
The poster later clarifies that they weren’t angry. They say, “I actually think it’s kind of funny, the things I find. I mean, one shoe. Does that mean someone walked up with only one shoe and didn’t notice? ”
Yes, if you have ever had a toddler, you definitely at some point, went home from the park with your kid only having one shoe on. If your child makes it to the end of the day in possession of both their socks, that is a cause for celebration.
Someone gets mad in the comments about something that is not stated or even even implied. They say, “Dogs aren’t even supposed to be off leash there in the first place. There’s signs on all gates”
The poster responds, “It appears that children should be on leash too. And I wonder why you assumed my dog was off leash. I can do two things at once.”
A thoughtful island replies, “Saying kids should be put on a leash seems a little excessive considering that facility is mostly used for children”
Children should only be on leashes in places that aren’t intended for children, like at the bar or Disneyland. It’d be awfully hard to have a soccer game if all the kids were on leashes.
One person feels like leaving stuff at the park is a direct attack on them as a taxpayer. They say, “Maybe part of participating in sports there would be part of the kids’ activities to pick up before they leave. Instill responsibility and show respect to those of us who pay property taxes to support their activities at these fields. Please and thank you ~”
One islander proposes that it’s not malicious behavior. They say, “The little playground area is a black hole. We have lost items for good at that playground despite due diligence and repeat recovery missions. I’m wondering if maybe there is a black hole or portal to the field. “
Another islander corroborates. They say, “I’m an author and have experience with Vashon portals. We have one in our yard. I lost my hubby in it for 15 minutes while two adults searched for him.”
I mean, if you can lose an entire husband, think how easy it is to lose a baby shoe.
It reminds me of that short story attributed to Hemingway:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn, they just appeared in our lawn one morning after the portal opened up
And since we can’t be trusted to use parks, maybe we should convene somewhere indoors. One poster has this suggestion:
One commenter says, “This is our emergency shelter when the big one hits.”
Another replies, “we can stash our emergency skate gear nearby. Perfect.”
Apparently, they aren’t alone in this fantasy. Others have the following suggestions:
- “I think that everytime I walk in! I think the employees should all be on skates and then when you ask them to get you something they can be there and back lickety split!”
- “My choice has always been: A Dance Hall / Disco when they’re closed!”
- “It could happen twice a year and Earl could charge a $5 entry fee that could go to an island charity (tax write-off). Couldn’t be a sustainable regular business but – a couple times a year? Hell yeah.”
- “Pickleball”
A killjoy notes, “ Insurance is the problem.”
But people have found a loophole: “hence “unregulated” we could do member only entrance, must be self insured.”
We could establish an underground uninsured roller rink. Just sign a waiver before you go in. And remember to take your shoes home with you. And leash your kids.
Author: Anna Shomsky
I'm a former teacher and a data engineer living on Vashon Island. My writing has appeared in Five on the Fifth, Broken Spine, Women on Writing and on the Post-Culture Podcast. I wrote and produced the radio show Whispers of Vashon for 101.9 KVSH. I’ve had short stories published in the anthologies Island Stories and Chicken Scratchings, as well as through the Open Space Literary Project.
