Seattle was flummoxed yesterday when Ballard, once a celebratedly mellow Scandinavian-American enclave, suddenly and swiftly succumbed to a savage and bloody internecine race war.
For many decades, the Norwegians, the Swedes, and the Danes co-existed peacefully in Ballard, despite long-lingering tensions among the three ethnic groups dating back since before the former city’s annexation by Seattle in 1907.
That all changed last week when the discovery of oil reserves beneath Salmon Bay provoked sudden international concern for the humanitarian plight of the citizens of Ballard.
Responding to the crisis with standard executive resolve, U.S. President Barack Obama immediately declared war on the Seattle neighborhood and announced plans for a full-scale military invasion aimed at overthrowing Ballard District Council President Sven Lundegaard, whom Obama proclaimed on national television to be a tyrant “worse than Hitler.”
What Obama unfortunately failed to anticipate was that Lundegaard was the one unique person who had long kept Ballard’s infamously repressed Scandinavian population from going to war against one another. Lundegaard’s sudden and brutal ouster instantly launched the race war that his leadership had long prevented.
Thus, the streets of Ballard ran red with blood yesterday as thousands of formerly cordial neighbors acted out myriad ancient grudges with guns, swords, and the deadliest weapon of all: lutefisk, which the most savage of the combatants used to choke their victims to death.
While the carnage escalated, several Lundegaard loyalists brazenly defied President Obama by making absurd public displays in downtown Ballard dressed in full Viking regalia, including one who rode atop the roof of a beat-up 1973 Volvo which drove slowly down Market Street whilst repeatedly blasting the Led Zeppelin classic “Immigrant Song” from its antique car stereo system.
When asked for official comment, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray declared, “I’m Irish. The Scandinavians? They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.”
Meanwhile, taking full advantage of the situation, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, speaking at a hastily assembled press conference in nearby Fremont, declared, “Stop the hatred now — but buy my coffee first.”
Stan Boreson was unavailable for comment.
