Shameless in Seattle 2013

Hey, More Red Egg Dye!

The Woodland Park Zoo’s annual Easter egg hunt is intended for children ages eight and under. Unfortunately they have to bring their parents. At 1pm on March 31, a mother allegedly shoved a child who got in the way of her own offspring, who was searching for candy-filled plastic orbs on the zoo’s grounds. The aggrieved tot’s mother allegedly retaliated, and the shover was left with a bloody nose.

So, How Many Calories Are in a Ray of Sunshine?

As a follower of Breatharianism, Naveena Shine believes the human body can survive on sunlight alone. Or believed. In May the 65-year-old Eastside resident set out to prove it, promising to fast for up to six months and record the whole process to keep herself honest. She gave up on Day 47 after gaining nearly 600 followers on YouTube but losing 20 percent of her body weight.

There’s One Kid Who’ll Be Happy to Have His Cell Privileges Revoked

West Seattleite Eliza Webb awoke one morning in July to find that someone had broken into her car and lifted her sunglasses and running shoes. But in their place, the thief left behind his cellphone—which Webb used to call the perp’s mother. Her number was in the contacts, under “Mom.”

And If the Girls Aren’t Cute Enough, You’re Running Extra Laps

Roosevelt High School softball coach Troy Hennum resigned in March after administrators found he’d recruited players to take pictures of “cute girls” and get their phone numbers for him.

I Knew a Guy in Grade School Nicknamed Goose Poop. Guess He Dodged a Bullet.

In August the USDA Wildlife Service captured and killed 90 geese at Lake Sammamish Park. Because the fowl were pooping too much.

OMG, You Guys, This Interview Sux. LOL.

While being interviewed about his role in Now You See Me on Q13 Fox, actor Morgan Freeman dozed off, leaving costar Michael Caine to pick up the slack. Freeman later explained to People, “I’m a beta tester for Google Eyelids. I was merely updating my Facebook page.”

In Exchange, Ballmer Got to Shoot Hoops with Obama

When Edward Snowden dropped the bomb in May that the NSA had been snooping on Americans’ online lives for years, he was only getting started: In July he leaked more documents to the press, revealing that, among other major tech companies, Microsoft had been complicit in the domestic spying program, allowing the feds to monitor Skype video calls and access users’ Outlook accounts at will.

Assaults with Not-So-Deadly Weapons

Flora After being denied a liquor sale at the Ballard Market, two women and a man allegedly threw, not one, but two potted plants at an employee.

Glass As a Seattle police officer approached a pair of public tokers, a third—who was hiding in the bushes—whipped a broken glass pipe past the cop’s head. When the cop confronted the alleged chucker to ask if he’d thrown the pipe, the perp responded, “No, I threw half a pipe at you.”  

Aluminum When asked by a Seattle police officer to pour out the Stack High Gravity Smooth Lager he was consuming in public, a man ignored the request and instead allegedly threw the can through the window of the officer’s cruiser.

Hormones An altercation between a bike messenger and a couple in a car turned bizarre when a pregnant woman exited the vehicle, pulled a stun gun from her bra, and began beating the bicyclist’s face with it.

What’s the Basketball-Term Equivalent of Astroturfing?

Three months after the NBA nixed Chris Hansen’s plan to move the Sacramento Kings to Seattle, it came out that Hansen had donated $100,000 on the sly to a group in Sacramento lobbying against keeping the team in town.

Okay, the Rebar Will Go into Concrete Walls, on Which We’ll Hang the Plaques

In May, mayor Mike McGinn proclaimed that the weapons collected in a January gun-buyback program—which, by the way, netted a missile launcher—would be melted down and turned into plaques carrying anti–gun violence quotations from kids. Except the guns had already been recycled and converted into steel rebar—which McGinn knew when he announced the plan.

By Fantastic, I Mean It Sucks

Business owners could have quietly raised prices to offset the cost of complying with the city’s new mandatory paid sick leave law, but not Ali Ghambari. The owner of the Cherry Street Coffee chain responded in typical Seattle passive-aggressive fashion by posting signs informing patrons that he was adding a 1.5 percent “sick leave surcharge” to all orders. But three days after The Stranger picked up the story, the signs were down and Ghambari was calling paid sick leave “fantastic.”

Pro Tip: Never Hire an Agoraphobic Signature Gatherer

When state election officials reviewed petitions for Referendum 74 submitted by paid signature gatherer Julie Klein, they noted that many of the autographs looked similar—probably because Klein signed most of them. Of the 1,001 she turned in, only 101 could be validated.

Their Second Choice Was Jimi Hendrix

Hoping to make a star-studded video collage for homecoming, a student from Virginia Tech wrote to Sub Pop to ask if one of the label’s artists could record the following message: “What’s up Virginia Tech? … Good luck at the game…. LETS GO HOKIES!” That band? Nirvana.

Those Striking Workers Must Have Been Really…Bored. Get It?

In August, less than a month after drilling began on the $2 billion waterfront tunnel that would replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a dispute between unions—including the International Longshore and Warehouse Union—over a mere four jobs ground the whole project to a halt. For a month. The boring machine, nicknamed Bertha, was expected to cut through six feet of soil per day in the beginning. But after two months it had only moved 24 feet.

Is a Refusal to Get the Hint Really a Super-power?
Part-time defender of Seattle and full-time self-promoter Phoenix Jones announced in April that he was setting up superhero franchises around the world. Sorry, world.

Not Even Department of Homeland Security Store Credit?

The Seattle Police Department saved some face by canceling its controversial drone program in February, but it still lost money ($82,000 to be precise) on the deal. Turns out the department held onto the drones too long and, as a spokesman put it, “the return policy had expired.”

Someone Hasn’t Had His Morning Joe!

Just two weeks after Matt Watson launched the Bitter Barista blog, in which he anonymously—and bitchily—took customers and his boss to task (sample: “If your name is not Jill, and you did not order a large vanilla latte, then this large vanilla latte for Jill is not yours”), another coffee blog outed him and he was fired.

Eh, Let’s Give Postal Carriers Saturdays Off After All

When Kevin O’Grady passed away in Seattle after a battle with lymphoma, his remains were supposed to be shipped back to his hometown of Spokane. Instead, the post office sent him on an unplanned trip through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Chicago.

This article originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of Seattle Met.

Published in the 100 Things You Must Do This Winter issue of Seattle Met.