Well, I don't like to lie to my friends, so I am not gonna. This whole story is a plant, invented by a somewhat overzealous gang of local citizens to discourage the insane lemming like flood of people who have decided to transplant themselves here before another snow arrives. They are canny and shrewd--many of them come from New England--and they have sharp bargaining habits, industrial Protestant work ethics, energetic dispositions, and no-nonsense demeanours. In short they are the very opposite in kind and character to everything that makes our peaceful haven what it is. They refuse to learn the language, will not adopt the local work ethic of laid-back pathos and herbal disassociation, and make old-time residents of our sleepy, easy-going surfer town most uncomfortable by constantly suggesting improvements.
So you see, we felt we had to do something, and, in a late-night meeting in one of our smoky rooms behind a local tavern, this was the plan our convention dreamed up. ANd do not ask why, in this day and age, the meeting was held in a smoky room, as I am sure you do not want to know. California has its own rites, its own rituals, its own pace in life, and we do not need exposure, do not seek acclaim, and do not want the hordes of outlanders with their frost-bitten earlobes waggling in our warm summer air. Hence, the tale of flying squids. We hoped if we could make the Pacific beaches uninviting it would have a reverse domino effect and send many of them back to Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Idaho, Massachusetts, Maine, and other such disreputable, snow-haunted places.