A raucous scene erupted today after it was discovered that a local millennial actually owns her own home, prompting neighboring renters to brand her a witch and pelt her with artisan, hand-crafted avocado toasts in an Old Ballard town square.
“There’s no way she could have afforded her own home in this economy, it’s witchcraft!” said Ballard resident Pat Pearson, smearing avocado to a slice of Macrina Casera bread before flinging it at homeowner Betty Carlyle. “I work three jobs and I’m forced to live in a studio apartment with two roommates above a fucking premium dog treat bakery! I can’t even put cow milk on the table, and she’s flaunting her macadamia milk to the whole neighborhood! We have seen her bubbling cauldrons of premium kombucha, the Whole Foods delivery bags on her stoop, the premium plant-based milk alternatives overflowing from her recycling bins. She has a Netflix, Hulu and Prime account and doesn’t share a password with five friends! She’s a witch!”
Carlyle was then strung up on a post near the Ballard Avenue bell tower for all townspeople to lay eyes on the alleged sorceress.
“The devil himself has slithered his wretched little tongue into the mind of Betty Carlyle and whispered his wicked incantations into her attentive ears and she has eagerly done his bidding in exchange for the forbidden fruit of home ownership,” shouted Thomas Ford, reading the charges to a bound and gagged Carlyle. “It is SHE who has afflicted us all of these damnable allergies to gluten, peanut butter, milk…Kevin has been forced to forsake corn, and corn is in everything! It is SHE who has violated the sacred oath and poached the Amazon packages from Paige’s doorstep, damning her to an eternity of lugging packages home on the bus from her office! It is SHE who has murdered countless of our succulents, sentenced to wither to a pathetic husk no matter how much or little we water them! Betty Carlyle, you have been charged with these most heinous and deliberate crimes against your city, your neighbors, and your generation, in exchange for the covenant of a humble home of your own! How do you plead: Guilty or not-innocent?”
At press time, the mob was pivoting to an updated ‘peine forte et dure’, this time laying the neighborhood’s collective student loan letters on her chest until she feels the crushing weight of their debt as they do.
