The World Trade Organization drew 5000 delegates from all over the world. In their wake, like so many fruit flies chasing a loaded banana boat, came the 50,000 protesters. Okay, I was one of them. But as I marched in a Sea Turtle suit up Sixth Avenue, I really wanted to wear the hostess apron my mother used to wear for laughs at parties, which said, "Who invited all these tacky people?"

Monday noon, the attack of the sea turtles.

Sierra Club and the Humane Society host a march of mostly amiable demonstrators. Thousands of people congregate at a downtown church. In the basement a few people unsuccessfully staple signs to sticks. It's slow going, so I pitch in but there's only two staplers and one is out of staples. We do our best without them. People go around handing out bright green stickers that say "No WTO!" I keep declining, which gets me suspicious looks. I wish they had a sticker that says "Fix the WTO" or something a bit less extreme. I think this would be more sea-turtlish.

We start on our march down 6th Avenue. We wear turtle suits, we carry signs, we chant (or rather, they chant) their displeasure over greed and badness and corporate money-grubbing. A Labor rabble rouser jumps up on a light post with a bull horn and shouts a muffled and long chant trying to get us to follow him. No one could understand him so most people went back to

"Hey-hey! Ho-ho!
WTO has got to GO!"

So much for rabble-rousing. Another labor guy carries a sign that keeps blowing off the stick and smacking him in the face. I point it out to a fellow turtle. "Hey, look! American workmanship!" I joke. She looks at me, horrified. A guy carries a sign that says "No more interest!" Okaaaay... I'm beginning to regret I didn't make a sign that says "Starving magazine needs startup millions!" An older woman and young man from Sierra Club march with tree boughs in their clothes. The WTO delegates aren't scheduled to meet until Tuesday, so there's no one around to yell at when we finally get to the Convention Center.

Near the back of the mob the march comes to a stop. Way down the block there's a band playing what sounds like Radical-Lesbian-Angry-White-Hippie-Girl protest songs. Next to me are three young women and a young man, all wearing black ninja outfits, faces covered with black scarves, gas masks hanging off their belts. I decide to stick around in case they do something stupid in the crowd... I outweigh the little waif girls by twice, I am more than willing to drop them like a sack of granola, and I can be far more indignant than any four radical poly sci juniors from Evergreen. They unfurl their "Vegan Resistance" sign and that's the end of their grand gesture for today.

Tuesday noon, 35,000 people take to the streets.

Next day the WTO is supposed to start but protesters do the thing they set out to do: they block the streets and keep the delegates out. These foreign visitors are bewildered, some mingle with the protesters and talk, some hole up in their hotel and gripe to tv news people about how in their country this sort of thing would never happen. I avoid the big noon Labor march because 1) it sounds communist, 2) it is full of Labor oafs treating people like simpletons and sheep, and 3) it promises to draw anarchists and vandals, probably using tire irons made in Taiwan.

I go to lunch in a deli near Pioneer Squre where it seems like a ghost town. A cop is paying for his lunch ahead of me with a traveller's check. "Are you from out of town?" I ask him. He is from Denver. His partner partner is from LA. Holy cats. We're swimming in imported fuzz. They have sidearms, night sticks, and are big and fit (which reminds me, Martha Jordan accused me of joining a protest march only for the chance of meeting cute public servants.)

At the architecture firm I am working at downtown, my co-workers respond to the cancelled buses with a very efficient car pool (stuffing 12 into a mini-van). Jennifer, Brooks and John, my pod-mates, look out the window for signs of mayhem. I cruise the internet news sites for updates. I am wearing the wrong shoes for walking 5 miles home, the cabs are on strike over a dress code, and there is a 7 o'clock curfew. Jennifer and I take the tunnel bus north and we pass a few sea-turtles who are walking to the protesters' tent camp up on Capital Hill. Brooks walks home through the tear gas. John walks two quiet blocks and takes a ferry home to Bainbridge island. Today we hate John.

By Tuesday night, there's vandals, busted-up businesses, police officers, tear gas and constant tv coverage. I get home and watch the news... stupid half-wits are vandalizing stores, and the police are showing amazing restraint by gassing and poking and herding people out of town but not beating the snot out of them. The protest leaders vow to come downtown first thing in the morning and help clean up.

Wednesday morning: the cops finally outnumber the protesters who are too tired to protest much of anything.

I ride the bus to downtown and there are some definite boundaries where protesters are totally unwelcome. The police are arresting more peaceful demonstrators. Two sea turtles and a butterfly have to leave their costumes on the sidewalk and stand there shell-less and wingless getting handcuffed and put on the Metro bus that goes to the Sand Point brig. The police use plastic zip ties instead of handcuffs.

Protesters who insist on getting their first civil disobedience arrest on their record do the passive resistance flop when the police come to haul them away. The police, who are faultlessly polite, carry them carefully, picking up the fallen pocket cameras, the dragging bandanas, the slipping jackets.

City water department workers clean graffiti off the buildings and waterfall sculpture of Westlake mall. A few token protesters are there with them, spraying something from a spray bottle on the spray-painted slogans, and scrubbing and spraying some more. The graffiti doesn't smear, fade, or go away. An environmental scientist friend snorts at their effort. "They're probably using that environmentally-friendly 'green' shit." The poor souls continue to labor like Sisyphus in Hades.

In the afternoon nearing the 7 o'clock curfew, things are different. The police scamper around like malicious elves sneaking up and spraying people in the face with pepper spray, then running off to the next hapless victim. On television, women cry and declare that they're dismayed and disturbed by this treatment. All they were doing was hanging around watching. It's hard to feel much sympathy for them... the crowd is about 10% earnest activist (who need to be pepper sprayed because it's part of the gig) and 90% curious onlookers (who need to be pepper sprayed because they're useless). Curfew. Martial Law. Get it? What part of "Go Home" don't you understand?

Wednesday night: tear gas and pepper spray come out in earnest. The police follow protesters back up to Capital Hill and begin "crowd control" on people just walking to the grocery store. It' s somewhat appalling to see soldiers running roughshod through a quiet funky neighbornood. Reason would compell most people to just go home for the night. A city councilman in a suit approaches some policemen decked out in full riot gear, he waves and gestures, generally being a politician. "I appreciate what you're doing! I apprecia -" No hesitation, a policeman hits him squarely with a load of pepper spray. I sit at home watching it on tv wondering how many other Seattle citizens are rooting for the cop in this instance. Spray the dork again, and then go find the rest of the city council and spray them, too.

KIRO channel 7's camera person and newscaster get pepper sprayed right in the middle of their live broadcast, whereas they had been previously tolerated. The news guy has fluid coming out his eyes and nose and mouth, and is calmly describing first hand how much it hurts. The camera is wavering around and looking all over, obviously run by a blinded operator. Ah, the stories they'll be able to tell when they accept their regional Emmy. I think they should get a prize for not yelling "MOTHER OF STALIN! THE PAIN! MY EYES! THE PAIN!" on the air.

Another ironic news article they ran tonight: According to some worthless magazine poll, Seattle is 6th most polite city in the United States, behind Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. There's some doubt we'll make the top 49 next year, but we'll probably still beat New Jersey.

Thursday, I stay home and watch the whole thing on tv.

Protesters congregate at the county lockup trying to get their 400 or so friends out of the slammer. First they want to get arrested, now they want out. Get a grip and live with your choices, would yas? Gosh, say the judges, there are just so MANY of you, it's going to take some time to process you all... so the crowd of thousands sits and waits. Pizza arrives. The police decide not to throw tear gas.

A protester pulls down the American flag from the flag pole. A man in his 50's from Seattle's Ballard neighborhood struggles to get the flag away from him and then he puts it back up again, fiercely standing guard at the base of the pole. Demonstrators cheer for the man from Ballard.

Friday, the city is back to normal and the street people are still in hotels.

It's still quiet, mostly because the homeless people are still living in hotels out of town, and because so many people are still taking advantage of civil unrest by staying home like it's a snow day. As a concession to the damages to downtown businesses, the city announces that parking meters will be free this weekend to encourage shopping. There is hope that the city will return to normal quickly. Oh, yeah. That ought to do it...

Leslie Strom adds Monday's Sea Turtle march to her impressive list of environmental protests which include the Free Lolita demonstration in May of '99, and a riot outside the University Village Cinnabon stand when they ran out of Madagascar cinnamon for the walnut rolls.

She almost pitched a fit when she heard she missed Ralph Nader's visit.