Try as we might to ignore the holiday phenomenon known as "Tacoma elf Storage, " it manages to come back to us every year like Aunt Smellinda's fruitcake.
Quick recap: A bird alights on the neon sign at a new storage business in 2007, trips a switch, darkens the "S." Owners parlay it into a cute tradition every subsequent Christmas season by turning off the letter. (Only two more days in 2011. The sign is restored to normal Jan. 1.)
People giggle and point at the Holgate Street building while driving on I-5. They take funny pictures for family Christmas cards. They write and call the daily fishwrap - regularly, breathlessly - saying: "Did you see the burned-out letter on that sign downtown? Can you believe it?"
Gosh, that's certainly something! We play along. The historic building was the longtime site of Tacoma Ice Company, so the little pixies ought to feel right at home!
Now comes a new twist to the annual tale. Some indie songwriters have written a holiday musical called "Tacoma Elf Storage." Its six songs are equal parts Christmas jingle, global-warming manifesto, love ballad and prison blues.
It's available online at www.tightshiprecords.com. It's produced by a merry band of collaborators who make holiday music together every December.
And here's the unbelievable part: They're 2,000 miles away. In Chicago. Where the only thing most people know of Tacoma is the pickup truck.
Le Schnoz could not determine whether members of this Windy City supergroup have visited the 253 area code, let alone seen our neon sign with their own eyes.
But their songs create an interesting - and ultimately, insulting - legend.
"The Elfin Labor Workforce Song" explains how the thinning of the ice at the North Pole led to population control measures in which several unlucky elves are exiled to Tacoma every summer by way of a lottery system.
"Elfin Love Song" features the heartsick cries of an elf named Chris who is sent away from his darling Natalie, "cross the ocean, far from home, back to old Taco* * * * *-mah!"
The title track, "Tacoma Elf Storage, " sounds like Tiny Tim tinkling his ukulele and includes the refrain: "Santa's surplus of labor serves us!"
Then comes the coup de grace.
The poke in the eye.
The kick in the shins.
It's a duet, sung by the young elvish lovers, as he plots his escape from the barren wastes of T-Town and she plans to rendezvous with him in a magical city where dreams come true.
The song's title? "Seattle or Bust."
It could be the soundtrack of our children, and our children's children, etc.
New Year's Day zombies: All those blue-lipped, teeth-chattering, stiff-limbed folks you'll see stumbling around Point Defiance Park at noon Sunday aren't extras from an episode of "The Walking Dead." Or runners who got lost during the Sound to Narrows last June.
They're participants in Tacoma's first Polar Bear Plunge.
The celebration, held around the world on Jan. 1, is an outlet for people who seem reasonably sane the other 364 days to propel themselves into shriveling-cold water.
Many of these events showcase outlandish costumes, because there's only one thing more fun than going hypothermic in Puget Sound: Doing it while dressed like a giant chicken.
But there is something unique about Tacoma's plunge at the park's marina: It'll be within screaming distance of real polar bears.
That got us thinking here at Nose HQ: Wouldn't it be ironic if the zoo used the occasion to let Kenneth and Boris take a human plunge?
Complete with jacuzzi, bermuda shorts, sunglasses and herring margaritas enjoyed poolside?
Alien spacecraft alert! Loyal Nose reader Greg Brewis says Pierce County Emergency Management has identified a strange-shaped UFO that crash-landed in the Tacoma Dome parking lot.
"The agency is in discussions with Star Fleet Command to develop an appropriate response, " Brewis informs. "Stand by for details."
He thinks it resembles a planet-killing behemoth from a 1967 episode of Star Trek called "The Doomsday Machine."
Our sources tell us it's gonna be a museum for classy cars.
We're starting to suspect it might really be a super-secure storage facility for runaway elves.
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