Just last week, Elizabeth Queens, 18, a freshman at Puget Sound, made a shocking discovery. Distraught after her fifth break up since registering for classes, she was walking despondently to 7/11 for a cherry slushie, when something amazing happened.
“I looked up and realized I had been staring at my shoes, counting the tears splashing on my laces, and had walked right across Sixth! I panicked! All the signs had strange, s-shaped symbols on them, and all the streets took crazy swerves in all kinds of directions. The craziest part is, I never even knew there was a south side!”
Elizabeth isn’t the only one to stumble on this well-concealed truth. Every year, new batches of freshly-baked freshmen accidentally wander past Metronome and Quiznos, bewildered by the enormous sprawl, and the fact that there’s a Forza on Union.
“Yeah, it was scary at first,” admitted Daniel, 20, who is now well-versed in Tacoman geography. “And I guess a part of me knew it all along. I mean, I could see across Sixth. There’s like houses and stuff. And I knew we got here somehow. I vaguely remembered a van and my mother waving goodbye…but I never put two and two together until I was jogging and inadvertantly continued on 21st all the way to I St., and didn’t fall into an infinite abyss.”
In fact, unbeknownst to most freshmen, Tacoma, founded in 1771, is the 12th largest U.S. city, and 3rd in the state of Washington. It’s home to a racially diverse population of nearly 250,000 people! It boasts seven libraries, 15 schools, four police departments, two hospitals, 1,150 bars, a couple McDonalds and a sick-ass bridge with glass in it. It even has its own breast-shaped dome, host to such talented acts as Linkin Park and Justin Bieber, just to name a couple.
Tacoma’s rich heritage and vibrant nightlife are slowly being embraced by cowardly freshmen. “We’ve decided to send scouting parties and emissaries into the unknown,” Queens told us earlier today. “Who knows what’s out there? There’s all kinds of magical possibilities. Maybe even another taco truck…”
