Deez Ironies…

DEEZ IRONIES… Squid loves irony as much as Squid loves jumbo shrimp. (And popcorn shrimp. And shrimp-flavored popcorn.) At least usually.

Not down in little San Lucas, a shrimp-sized South County town with a population of about 500, with dusty streets and a three-room school for grades K-8.

That’s where the water turns clothes yellow in the laundry, leaves dark rings around the toilet bowl and even killed a resident’s parakeets.

A few summers ago, on July 7, 2011, Monterey County Health Department published a notice that read: “We are requiring the use of bottled water or water from an approved source for drinking or cooking.”

So the irony was painful, even for Squid, when precisely zero people filed papers to run for water board.

It gets worse. Five other districts have suffered similar vacuums: San Ardo Water District, Big Sur Unified School District – with five open seats, Graves School District in Salinas, Greenfield Memorial District and Santa Lucia Community Services District.

For all these important local offices, no candidates. One hellacious job as president of the country, and we have 30-plus candidates, including Deez Nuts. A final irony: Squid files this piece on National Voter Registration Day.

HERO TO ZERO… Squid is exceptional among marine creatures, and as such, was born with an ego.

There are of course other sentient beings in the deep, the cetaceans, but they are the Buddhists of the sea, always at play or swimming along with an annoying sense of inner peace.

Squid, on the other hand, desperately wants validation, honor and glory. Squid’s always envied humans for their Homeric epics, Olympic medals and fifth-place trophies.

Which is why Squid was surprised by an item on Marina City Council’s Sept. 15 agenda: A consideration about whether to consider, at a future date, limiting presentations associated with “heroic” or “historic” acts. Umm, what?

The item was introduced by Councilmember Frank O’Connell, who surprised Squid at a recent meeting by saying, “Perhaps I watch too much Orange is the New Black.”

So while O’Connell is apparently entertained by women in prison suits, he evidently cares little about how you saved a drowning puppy at the beach, or how Fort Ord’s 738th Field Artillery Battalion helped Gen. George Patton liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.

It seems he just wants to take care of the business at hand and get home as early as possible, where it’s Showtime.

But alas, because a councilmember was absent, the item was continued to a later meeting, so there’s still time yet to grab some glory. Squid awaits Squid’s medals.