We must start with the most pressing news of the day. Four zebras en route to Montana escaped from a trailer in North Bend. Three were rounded up by what the media refers to as a “rodeo clown.” Had I known that was a real profession, I would have made very different decisions when applying for college.
But there is still one zebra on the loose, and there have been credible sightings on island. One person posts this very real picture:
The sad look in his eyes is the realization that peaches cost 4.99 a pound.
The zebras are popping up everywhere in the comment sections. Not the zebras themselves; their membership is still pending because they haven’t answered the questions required to join Vashonites. People are just finding excuses to bring them up.
For example, we have this post:
People immediately ask, ‘How about a zebra?” and “What if a zebra shows up?”
My first question is: what do horses have to do with Star Wars? I’m not much into Star Wars, and I dozed off for a good portion of the three prequels, which, as far as I could tell, were basically like intergalactic CSPAN. Maybe Emperor Palpatine made his horse a senator at some point? I have no idea. Someone please tell me the connection between horses and Star Wars. But do it in two sentences or less. I have no patience for in-depth Star Wars analyses.
The good news is, someone had a horse head to offer.
Apparently May 4th is Star Wars day, the one day each year when people think about Star Wars. That explains why we have yet another post about Star Wars.
I”m pretty sure I would have noticed this park, unless it’s next to Lost Lake. But I swear I haven’t seen a Millenium Falcon on island larger than 10 feet.
Others explain why. One person says, “It closed down in the early 70s. Only real islanders know this.”
Apparently Facebook’s AI just made up this answer based on all the stuff it knows about Vashon. So this is either a thing the algorithm says has a 98% likelihood of existing here, or the machine made to consume the sum of human knowledge and summarize it was like, ‘lol, I know the answer, but I’m going to lie to you instead.’
As a side note, the biggest new trend in tech is machines that plagiarize and lie. I could have used this in high school. When I was a kid, we had to plagiarize by hand or come up with a plausible excuse for why we didn’t do the work. Now the computer just does it for you. Kids today have no idea how easy they have things.
And speaking of things that don’t exist on Vashon but should, we have this post:
Others add suggestions. We have:
“There absolutely needs to be a bumper sticker referencing stackable washer/dryer sets.” and “Turn on the pop machine and “Mail Thief.”
Another person says, “My favorite is the one we used to have ‘Vashon: We’re all here … cause we’re not all there …’”
I saw this one in town, and I’d like it for my car. It really sums up my contribution to island culture.
Or I could get a bumper sticker that says, “The speed limit is a maximum, not a minimum.” This would likely lead to my body being found in a ditch somewhere.
And this may be sacrilegious to say on Star Wars Day, but I’ve always wanted to get decals of the warp core on my car, and have it leaking plasma in all the places where there are dings and scratches. Then I’d have a bumper sticker that says, “Warp Drive is Offline.”
And if anyone makes a bumper sticker that says, “I brake for zebras” they could make a killing.
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, 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.
