We’ll start this month with a Choose Your Own Adventure. You’re in the ferry line, the ferry starts loading, and yet the cars ahead of you aren’t moving because someone in line fell asleep. To pull out your sword and smite them, turn to page twelve. If you hate choose your own adventures and just want to read a story in a linear order, keep reading.
Many of us break the fourth wall and choose an option not given by the author. One says, “D…Post on Facebook.”
On person says, “I start honking and hope everybody else between me and the sleepy guy will begin to honk along…”
I like that you’re starting a little concert. It’s like the wave at sports events, but for car honking.
Another person has a plan and a contingency plan. “Honk and if they don’t honk and no one moves, THEN drive around everyone & honk at them all. ”
Be sure to flip them all the bird as you drive past. That’s what they get for being nice!
A more creative way of dealing with the problem would be to go full David Attenborough. “I choose Option D: roll down the window and loudly narrate the whole situation like a nature documentary until someone wakes up…”
I imagine it going something like this: In the wild, commuters are usually alert to their surroundings. However, the island commuters, who’ve been raised in captivity, have a lesser sense of danger, and sometimes fall asleep at inopportune times. This behavior awakens a primal rage in their fellow species members, who have been known to go to such extremes as sighing, fidgeting, and even honking to express their disquiet.
Some people have this wild idea that you could get out of your car and wake the person up. One says, “10 cars is not too far to sprint down and wake them up. I’ve run down further to tell a cutter to get out of line.”
Leaving your car in the ferry line while the ferry is loading is a bold move. The driver will wake up, start going,then everyone will be driving while you’re running against traffic, and people will start going around your car, and you’ll have to jump in your car, start your engine, and reassert your place in the line. This act of bravery is only for the most athletic among us.
Then of course there’s always someone who assumes the worst. They say, “Honk, pull up and check, honk again to make sure isn’t dead.“
As much as we hate people who slow up the ferry line, we despise people who don’t use the local terms. One person posts:
A few people address the uptown/downtown/town/overtown distinction, but others ask the more important questions. One says, “Is it part of the new piercing place or is that separate?”
The answer someone gives is, “Separate. Tattoo place is Vashon village (same as lodges, wine shop) and the piercing place is the same building as Vashon John L Scott near the north end.”
So there’s a combination real estate office /piercing emporium. That’s truly the intersection of Vahson’s cultures.
And speaking of Vashon culture, we have this post:
One commenter asks, “Do they need a Master’s?”
Okay, quick question. Can you get a Master’s in that?
As for if you need a Master’s the poster clarifies, “Not at all!” Phew! I wouldn’t want to visit a psychic who was full of book learning but didn’t have much real world experience performing Vulcan mind melds on whales.
Two people are tagged in the comments, which implies there are not one, but two pet psychics on island.
One islander says, “Yes! I’d love to find one too!” Maybe a human psychic will know that you need an animal psychic, and introduce you.
Dog psychic isn’t the only strange spiritual phenomenon on island. We also have a new religion.
One person says, “I THOUGHT THE SAME THING WHEN I DROVE PAST ”
Me too! I pictured someone approaching the door of the sewage treatment plant and nailing 99 theses to the door.
Another person says, “It’s amazing what your brain wants to see”
This is true. I ‘ve been looking for spiritual fulfillment in the mundane.
One islander kindly clarifies the theology for us. “Septic worship is actually a very niche religion some of us practice on Vashon in the hopes of appeasing the septic gods and goddesses”
A commenter fills in the gaps for us and envisions an entire afterlife system. “It’s not just you! Same thing happened to me!! I laughed and proceeded to consider what septic worship could mean even though I had realized quickly that my initial read was incorrect. Didn’t matter at that point, the image lives in the brain’s mainframe and is processing the many different possibilities. I visualized heaven and hell as systems involving functioning and nonfunctioning septic systems with varying degrees of overlap and overflow.”
I wonder what Anubis weighs your heart against in this religion?
Perhaps there are no mistakes, just Freudian slips. One person says, “All you that see ‘Worship’ are living with the subconscious need for a higher power. Not saying church or Deity. Just a higher power. Try taking the next immediate left.”
Depending which way you’re headed, that’ll either send you to the gas station parking lot or Sawbones. I’m not sure what kind of spiritual fulfillment one could find in those places, but I won’t rule out trying to commune with the divine by staring into a rainbow oil slick in a puddle in a pot hole.
But someone else found the divine somewhere even lower than in a septic tank. “I thought it said Satan Worship.” If that is a Freudian reading, we should be friends. You sound fun.
But let’s get back to being haters. What else do we hate? Other people’s parenting! Is it a sign of the apocalypse when a child behaves in public in a way you find mildly irritating? Absolutely.
A lot of the comments are similar to this first one: “Yeah it’s called discipline and parenting. People have no regard for others”
Another parent says, “Had these been my children I would have been mortified and I would have removed them from the theater immediately and it would’ve been the last movie they would be going to until they could prove to me that it wouldn’t happen again!! There would also be an apology letter written to the theater for their disruptive behavior!! Respect for others and being polite and just being thoughtful was a given in my household and I have FIVE grown successful children!!!”
Okay, but how many unsuccessful children do you have?
A lot of people pile on. One says, “I have seen similar repugnant behavior on the ferry-boats, docks, terminal buildings, etc. As kids (in the 80s & 90s)we noticed if an adult gave us a look of disapproval, and the misbehavior stopped.”
You guys had a very different childhood from mine. If a random grownup gave me a look of disapproval, I gave them a look back. Judge and be judged. And was I a public nuisance? Probably. There weren’t many places kids could go and hang out, so in middle school my friends and I would go to the library and read aloud to each other from Jackie Collins novels. So be grateful young me wasn’t in the theater, mispronouncing ‘throbbing manhood’ and giggling.
Other people tell the original poster to be the change they want to see in the world. “Shaming folks on social media is wild because if you were there you could have said something. But it’s cool that Facebook allows anonymous bash posts I guess.”
The poster defends their choice to blast a stranger online rather than confront the problem. They say, “These were school aged kids loud and tall enough to be distracting…. AND back in my day you could be that auntie and tell those kids to behave— I don’t dare now as parents can be worse than the kids. We used to be able to be that village now with those parents that think their kids can ‘free range’ it can get you into trouble.”
When you’re a parent of a child who is misbehaving, you feel totally powerless. Wild to think that other people are afraid of you and think you may be litigious or violent. I can’t stop a 14-year-old from being sassy in public! You think I have the capacity to harm you in any meaningful way?
Another person asks, “Would you let your kids run up and down the aisle during a church service?’”
Okay, admittedly I rarely find myself in a church, but when I do, the only enjoyable part is the cute little kids running up and down the aisles in their cute little shoes. Also, I’ve never seen God smite a child for running in church, which I believe means the behavior is divinely ordained.
Also, if you feel the movie theater is like a church, have you considered joining my weekly sewage worship group? We meet at the dumpster across from the Art Center. You know, the one with Spring Break spray painted on it.
Let’s ditch the negativity and move onto something positive. We have this post:
The first answer is, “Pear blossoms”
It’s followed immediately by “I am grateful that the junkies have not robbed my mail..”
I’m disappointed no one stole my mail. I’m sick of getting flyers for window replacement services I can’t afford, letters from my insurance company that I never bother to open, and newspaper inserts telling me the sale prices for fruit at a grocery store off island.
The next answer is, “watching the clown car going off the rails.” I’m going to pretend they aren’t talking about politics but rather that this is completely literal, and there is a train that derailed and spilled out clowns, who tumbled down a hill, their bodies a blur of red wigs and oversized shoes, their little hand-held horns honking all the way. And for that image, I am grateful.
One islander adds, “Learning my apple tree’s leaves are super nutritious and yummy!”
And another says, “That, as my 2 year old was listening to the chirping birds, he looked up to the sky and blurted, ‘CHICKENS!!’ That and edible kale flowers.”
I’m grateful that I just learned about two new types of flowers I can eat. I’m going to go around people’s lawns, nibbling on blossoms like a deer.
I’m also grateful that people are giving away free stuff online. We have this post:
The first comment is: “Is it a lawn aerator?”
The poster responds, “That seems to make sense.”
Wait, do you not know what the thing is? What kind of sphinx doesn’t know the answer to their own riddles?
I’m also grateful for the artistic bundt cake pans that have been popping up in town.
Someone asks “Is it concrete? Or?”
The answer: “They are concrete! “
We don’t know who made them or why, but we have a few clues. One person says, “Showed up on April Fools day.”
Another adds, “There’s an orange one outside of ace!”
And they’re not just decorative. They have an actual use. One commenter says, “Snapdragon uses them for doorstops(?)”
But we’re also told to be cautions. “Do not eat,” warns one islander.
Don’t tell me what to do! *Shards of teeth and concrete dust dribble from my mouth.*
We have the mystery of the bundt cake pans, but also a more mundane mystery: lost animals.
As for the cat, he knew what was coming and made a run for it. Can’t blame him. And that dog managed to break a hefty chain to get free. I’m not worried that he’ll get into any trouble that he can’t get himself out of.
Still, somebody ought to call the pet psychic to find these guys.
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.
