The News on Jan 31, 2013

Imagine that it is Jan 31, 2013.

Due to a recalibration of the Mayan Calendar, Dec. 21, 2012 turned out not to be the date when the earth came to an end. That's now projected for a little more than a century from now. Some sort of bug in the Mayan calculations. You'll have to wait a bit longer for the end of the world.

However, the City of Pacific lost its insurance coverage on December 31, 2012, and ceased to operate. And just as with the mistake over the Mayan calendar, it was no big deal.

Chicken Little's prediction about the sky falling in turned out to be true, but that only amounted to the winter overcast being down at ground level, and everyone immediately recognized that as a common phenomenon in the Puget Sound region. We know it as fog. Walking around in a fog was nothing new for the residents of Pacific, particularly for their elected officials. They just walked right through those great big chunks of sky that were piled up in the yards and on the roofs, hanging from the trees and laying around in the streets.

Within a month, an emergency water district was created and the water kept flowing. Toilets kept flushing.

Fire protection continued to be provided by the Regional Fire Authority.

There were no longer any local police, but there was no great outburst of lawlessness either. There never had been a threat of lawlessness, raising the question as to what we accomplished with 24-hour police protection. This made one humorist talk about the guy who put lettuce in his hair to keep the elephants away. (It worked! There were absolutely no elephants anywhere in Pacific.)

The end of the police department came with a benefit: Drivers didn't have to spend all their time looking in their rear-view mirrors for the blinking lights of the revenue collectors, and they could pay more attention to the road ahead of them.

Of course, former public officials drove drunk just like always, but they really weren't much of a threat. They managed to miss everyone in the past, and as long as you knew they were coming, you could just get out of the way.

Most of the senior citizens were already using the senior center in Auburn, and those who weren't were bused into Auburn. They took it all in stride and enjoyed the change of scenery. When you're that old, a bus ride out of Pacific can be an adventure.

Without city officials to dump fill dirt and other materials in the city park, the risk of flooding dropped dramatically.

Waste Management, a national firm, continued picking up the garbage and billing the residents.

A handful of individuals were inconvenienced, but the biggest aggravation was the lack of excitement. The thrill of seeing who was being excoriated in the media each week was over and done with, and Pacific residents now had to revert to late-night TV reruns for their entertainment. Pacific became a really boring, peaceful little neighborhood. Nobody was pleased about that.