The Seattle Times copydesk has confirmed that, shortly after deadline today, the 130-year-old metropolitan newspaper has finally run out of mid-sized cities and towns in Washington state to call hamlets.
“I’m afraid that after years of occasionally parachuting feature reporters into any municipality that isn’t Seattle, we’ve officially run out of mid-sized towns to write about as if they are only populated by quaintly naïve hobbits who don’t know as much as us city folk, but can maybe surprisingly teach us a thing or two about life,” said Metro Editor Sandy Shawl. “What do we even call Arlington now? A shire? God help us.”
The sudden shortage came after a reporter braved both a tavern and a hamburger restaurant in Mount Vernon to describe the real people of the 35,000-population city sitting on Interstate 5 like 19th-century miners with notes like “jeans scuffed, faces worn.”
“Look, 99 percent of Seattle’s never actually been to these places and these places don’t get our paper, so I can describe them however I want,” said reporter Peter Ricks. “If I want to describe this place a bucolic fantasy town of hairy, barefoot people who all know each other by their first names, I usually can, but I guess we’ve officially used up all the towns I can use my ‘hamlet’ Mad Libs story template on.”
Ricks said he’s not too worried though.
“Next week, I think I shall courageously venture into the far-off, yet diverse village of Tukwila.”
