Here I go again. Once again I’m sitting in Miami International Airport waiting for my boarding call. I’m in Group 6. I’ve never been on a flight that went higher than 4 so there’s a bit of concern but I’m sure that everything will work out and in an hour or two I should be safely sealed inside my pressurized vault hurtling through the sky on my next little adventure. This time I’m off to do something I’ve never done before.

I’m going to Seattle.

Big whoop! Yeah, I know, but I’ve never been there before so I’m really excited. After the nightclub adventure I am all about doing things I’ve never done before. The Pacific Northwet is the only part of the US that I haven’t spent any time in so it holds some definite appeal as a place to live. The Puget Sound area meets all my prerequisites vis-à-vis proximity to salt water, interesting geography, a nearby urban center, and, if the rumors are true, good coffee. I’m a bit worried about the coffee though. I mean Starbucks is a Seattle company and the swill they brew is about as close to coffee as the boring gray disks that McDonalds sells are to burgers. Come to think of it, McDonalds’ coffee is better – much better actually – than Starbucks’. Considering that the McDonalds people who sit around and try to figure out what the people who eat their “burgers” for lunch would like to drink for breakfast came up with that brew just goes to show you how far away from coffee the toxic wastewater that Starbucks sells really is.

Which oddly enough brings me to my point. That point being that in Seattle I think they’re putting something in the water and beaming mind-control rays at people when they sleep.

I think the proof lies – quite literally – in the weather. Everybody I’ve talked with about my potential relocation has said something like “Why would you want to go there? It rains all the time and when it isn’t raining it’s dreary and gray and everybody is walking around like pasty, sun-starved zombies.” If you look at the weather forecasts the National Weather Service is always calling for high and low temperatures to be about the same, rain, clouds, yuck and – ¡BANG! send in another forecaster. Every once in a while – probably as part of their training – the weatherperson will hint at something like “partly cloudy”. When the actual day of potential insolation arrives the forecast has been “revised” to dreary, gray, cold, and wet. When you look at satellite images the area is always encased in clouds. Same for radar. Same for webcams. 

But “always” is impossible. I know why.

When I talk to my friends in Seattle they’ll say “I’m supposed to do X tomorrow but the forecast calls for clouds, rain, and yuck.” Where X can be any kind of outdoor activity imaginable. “I sure hope this nice weather holds on for one more day.” Sure enough, tomorrow comes, the activity goes off without a hitch and my smug amigos send me some I’m-having-more-fun-than-you-are pictures showing the activity and the glorious sunny weather. This happens every time.

All of the documentaries I’ve ever seen on the Pacific NW – even those about where to buy coffee – show magnificent sunny weather. I doubt that the production companies that make these documentaries would have 1) the patience to wait for good weather and 2) the budget to keep their crews onsite until such weather swept through some random afternoon. So something else must be going on. Something like everybody just thinks the weather is bad all the time.

My favorite documentary scene is the one where the commentator is standing in Seattle with an amazing view of Mt. Rainier – some 60 miles away – behind him. “When it explodes,” he points towards the distant peak, “the ashflow will come sweeping through this area with a temperature of 900F (483C for everyone else) at a speed of nearly 200 miles per hour (322KmPH).” He turns back to the camera. “Every person living there will be cooked instantly and swept into Puget Sound where the crabs will feast on the carrion.” The frame zooms in on his face. “The eruption is imminent.” Fade to black.

I’m sure this will make the crab fisherman happy. Oh yeah. Two more reasons to like the area: volcanoes and earthquakes.

But I digress. The evidence keeps stacking up in my favor. I had an interesting conversation with the guy sitting next to me on the flight from Miami to Chicago. He asked where I was heading and I told him I was going to Seattle. “Ah,” he said, “bad weather there. But,” he went on, “all the times I was there it was spectacular. I must be really lucky.” Or really susceptible to the brain rays.

Here’s what’s going on. The Weather Disinformation Program was originally developed to prevent everyone in the country from moving to the Pacific NW thereby unbalancing the continent, causing California to break off and become an island, and ensuring the country would be run by an unending string of tree-hugging, ice-sheet-melting, panty-waist, alarmists elected by everybody who had moved to the Left Coast. To make sure this wouldn’t happen the Power Behind the Government (you know whom I’m talking about) requires all public information to say or show that the weather in the PacNW always sucks. That part’s easy because who controls all the satellites and radar????? The Government. Webcam feeds are intercepted (“They” run the internet too) and their images replaced with something from a seasonally appropriate library of pictures showing dreary, rainy, gray, yuck. If you’ve never been to Seattle, like me, all you know is what you’re fed on the TV and internet. I got lucky and had an inside source of information. I was able to see the truth and break the nefarious plan.

The flies in the ointment are the people who actually live or travel there. So they put something in the water and started beaming the mind-control rays. The stuff in the water makes you susceptible to the rays and the rays send you the message that You’re really lucky, the weather’s not always this nice. I think they use FM. If you live there or visit at some point you’re exposed to the water either directly or indirectly through the numberless micro-brew beers or – get ready – the coffee! At this point it’s no longer important whether you are a local or a visitor. No matter what the actual weather, you will always believe that the weather in the Pacific NW is the worst in the known universe other than certain moons of Jupiter. Except while you were there!

I imagine this kind of weather conspiracy can get pretty darn expensive. I imagine that the greater Puget Sound governments would look for a way to defray the costs. I imagine they would do the same things they have done with public transit, airports, and sports arenas. They would look for a Big Name Corporate Sponsor. 

Ah Ha! Starbucks!

Exactly.

Hey, this is damn fine coffee. Buy more. The message goes out piggy-backed on top of the weather-lie in the mind-control beams. Starbucks grows and expands. The rest of the country thinks Those guys in Seattle know their coffee so this must be good. They try it. Well, OK yuck, but those guys in Seattle know their coffee so this must be good. The feedback loop is complete and soon Starbucks has their triple-shot-caramel-machiatto-dripping corporate tentacles wrapped around every airport, shopping mall, and urban center on the continent. 

Governments being governments one sponsor is never enough. So, along the lines of sponsored half-time shows at football games, the Weather Disinformation Program picked up a minority sponsor – the Mexican Drug Cartels. Washington State is reputed to be one of those places where a lot of former hippies washed up after all the other former hippies figured out that they could make a lot more money in Corporate America than they ever could sitting around listening to Pink Floyd. The State has always had liberal leanings. One of the problems having so many old hippies and liberals was that the State’s prisons were filled to overflowing with all those aging stoners doing 1-3 for felony possession. The prison budgets were strained to breaking and real criminals were walking free. So Washington State got the Cartels on board as a minor sponsor to help empty out the State’s prisons. The new message: Medical Marijuana. But there had to be something more than that to pique the interest of the largest industry south of the border. Something that would make them tip their sombreros back on their heads and say “¡Ay, caramba”.  A new message was pitched that would encourage the liberal elite to start importing more ganja than they know what to do with.

First they had to legalize, for all intents and purposes, the stuff and allow the soon-to-be-suffering populous access to unbelievable amounts of weed. The message went out that the afflicted individual needed enough pot to alleviate their pain. The message said that at any time each person was allowed to own more dope than the Grateful Dead smoked while on tour in 1973. Plus they were allowed to own some plants too. But that would upset the sponsors so the “patients” under treatment were not allowed to have any seeds. The message worked! The “Medical Marijuana” law passed and now every sufferer that can be medically justifiedis allowed to own – at any time – up to FOUR ounces of the noble herb and up to FOUR – count ‘em – live plants. Just the dried stuff alone is enough to keep you staring at the cracks in the wall for over six months – even if you never kept your stash up.

Now every Washingtonian is allowed by virtue of law to be stoned all the time. This State must have the highest incidence of joint pain – no pun intended – on the planet. Over two pages of a local newspaper are devoted to “dispensaries” where for a “donation” the (now very) “patient” can pick up their “medication”. And for the “health care providers” which will justify your need. The drug importers can now move enough merchandise in Washington to keep them interested – and an active financial supporter of the Weather Disinformation Program. Everybody stays in the heartland, the continent remains well right of center, and we get eight years of DubYa soon to be followed by eight more of the Babe from Alaska. See how it all ties together.

I’ve now had my first full day in Seattle. I took the bus into downtown this morning and spent my day wandering up and down. I am now beat, jet-lagged and ready to call it a day right after dinner. The weather forecast – you are not going to believe it – called for rain all day. But, true to my theory, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. No lie. My long walk took it out of me though. My ankle really hurts and for some strange reason I’ve been very thirsty all day long. I think I’ll go get some coffee.