I wanted to share these three stories I sent to the Willamette Week as part of my resume. The application process for being an intern asked for some writing samples and so I gave them this. (Listed in order of increasing absurdity)

GETTING TRASHED: If your New Year’s party made more waste than your trash can could hold, you may want to consider a lifestyle change. Waste Management, which serves Portland and surrounding areas, announced Monday they will no longer be servicing the area. City officials approved of Waste Management’s decision, telling residents that they could now be their own “garbage men and women”, sans the big green truck. But some residents believe this new deal will stink all the way to the dump. “Will I be burning my diapers in the back yard like some uncivilized clod now?” Shirley Temple, mother, asked a group of protestors outside of Waste Management’s headquarters in Northeast Portland. The city expects to save $1.2 million on the deal, but will it leave a pleasant smell in the noses of Portland?

EYE EXAM: Ever worry about getting lost because you couldn’t read a street sign? Well worry no longer. The city of Portland has proposed a new bill that would increase the size of signs to be more legible by the majority of American adults whom increasingly use some form of vision correction. Street signs will be increased by a factor of five and that, along with the hefty price tag of $1.6 billion, has detractors of the bill worried. “There are serious health concerns about a 20-foot long street sign on every block in Portland,” said representative Earl Blumenauer, who likened the new signs to guillotines. There is also evidence of corporate dealings in the bill, Blumenauer added. “We simply cannot expect drivers to be alert if they are bombarded by billboards the size of football fields.”

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE: Chocoholics beware: this story may send you into a caramelized state of shock. The Nestle chocolate company, in yet another attempt to break into Portland’s burgeoning art scene, has an ambitious plan to give Stumptown its tastiest bridge yet. The proposal, to be voted on in a May 2012 referendum, details a structurally sound bridge made entirely of chocolate. The bridge would take about six months to build and another year to consume. TV and internet campaigns produced by Nestle state Portland can put the gingerbread house Hansel and Gretel found “to shame” and local politicians joked that Nestle’s CEO—let’s just call him the Easter Bunny—has taken his final leap down the rabbit hole.