With such a crazy year now in our rearview mirror, I wonder what the heck will happen in 2014. I put on my thinking cap to try to figure it out. Not much luck. Frankly I found it easier to see what won’t happen. Then again … (smiley face). You decide.
January
County Commissioner Steve Stuart — beaten and battered in 2013 by Commissioners David Madore and Tom Mielke — opts not to run for re-election. “There’s only so much a mostly grown man can take,” Stuart said. “The M&M boys have won.”
February
Absolutely no one — and I mean no one — was interested in The Columbian’s Don’t Do Stupid Stuff mugs when they went on sale again after selling out the first four orders. “We’re not interested in poking a little good-natured fun at people,” one reader tells us. “No more chugalugs with your goofy mugs.”
March
State Rep. Jim Moeller — rated the most liberal human being to ever walk the face of the Earth — finally found a tax he could vote against. “Truth is,” Moeller said, “I introduced a bill to tax us politicians when we use the people’s money to do our laundry and eat and other silly stuff. Then I voted against the bill I introduced so The Columbian could no longer say I’ve never seen a tax I didn’t like!”
April
Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt finally broke his New Year’s resolution to keep his clothes on in public. It happened at a regularly scheduled city council meeting when Vancouver nonresident Carolyn Crain asked if he would wobble with her.
Crain — who has showed up at every public meeting ever scheduled — said she hoped to raise money for a good cause: gas money to get her to public meetings.
“I had no plans to do the latest dance craze tonight,” Leavitt said, “but nonresidents and good causes come first.” When asked why he had to wobble naked he said one doesn’t have to have a reason.
May
State Sen. Don Benton — likely the most unqualified county employee to ever walk the face of the Earth — finally admitted as much this month.
“Let’s see, I’ve been collecting a large county paycheck to be the county environmental services director for more months than I can count. OK, OK, I’m not good at counting either. But all this criticism is getting to me. Sure, I look a little shifty. Who cares.
“I can say I finally learned the difference between compost and calamari but I’m thinking compost still tastes a little better.
“Now shut up!”
June
After months of crushing the general public in multiple unimaginable ways, the M&M boys finally reveal their master plan. Both Madore and Mielke stood at a press conference that only The Columbian attended.
“Hey,” Madore said, “do you think I have everyone’s attention? You see, that was the entire plan. Rile people up so badly that the conjunction between fantasy and reality will skew itself in a way that will alter the difference between two equals resulting in a transformation so profound that someplace, somehow — likely in Yacolt — the floodgates will open up in a way that flooding will occur.”
A county public relations type poked Mielke in the back to tell him it was his turn to speak.
After pondering the deep thoughts of Madore, Mielke paused for 30 minutes. And The Columbian left.
