Lon Lonson was the Mayor and his assistant went by Squirts. They were losing air in City Hall with stacks of permits piling up. Permits for a bigger this and a louder that. Permits for a better so and a less soft of more. Permits for beasts of steel, and how many how many for househows and whos. And so swinglash of more, and so many extra papers of permits of this so’s and able, and all they had to do was stamp them all, apparently that is all that was asked of them to do. To get the permits and stamp them approved.
The permits came from everywhorl, the mail and the snail and the ships and the drips and the walls and the calls and out of the woodwork just as usual, and they got all the permits and they stamped them all OK.
They stamped them and they stamped them and they stamped them all approved. They didn’t take the time to read them, they just stamped them all approved, and there was enough too much work for them anyway, so that is all that was certainly expected.
They ran out of ink but then a permit came with extra ink. They stamped their rubber stamps down to a nub and then a new permit came with an extra rubber stamp. Their four arms got tired of stamping and then a permit arrived packed with extra arms already pumping. The ink squirted up into their eyes and a new permit came with eye cleaning fluids and eye cleaning cloth so they could see to stamp, so they could do their daily City Hall duty.
They stamped so much that they stamped everything else in their life and in their day. They stamped their breakfast lunch and dinner and stamped their loved ones once at home. They stamped the journey to work and back, they stamped during happy hour and at some funerals too. They stamped and they stamped like they didn’t know what else to do.
When Cyclops came into City Hall to file a permit to change for official from he to she, they stamped her on the forehead just as ink as they could be.
“What can we do for you, She-Cyclops,” said Lon Lonson the Mayor with ink on his breath and a stamp at the end of each arm.
“I am now a woman and not a man and not a no-man or an also-ran or a sam I am or a knight of spam. I am not a he but now a she and I must file the proper paperwork, or so I hear, of this I fear,” said Cyclops with her eyes and face and amazing product hair.
Lon Lonson made a stamp or three. Squirts made the stamping two through four. They stamped the walls and windows, floor. They stamped their shirts and stamped the door. They stamped the papers as they came; that’s how they played the permit game.
“You just provide us with the permit and we will stamp it approved,” Lon Lonson, the Mayor, said.
“We will stamp it with our ink and stamps,” said Squirts, and he meant it because he sent it.
“We know how to stamp because we’ve been doing it all our lives. We can stamp out ants and we can stamp bee hives,” said Mayor stamper, the man with the ink.
“We do it best from morn to night, we stamp and then we take a bite,” said Squirts, even tho such stamping sometimes hurts.
Cyclops watched them stamp, but he didn’t have the form to fill out, he hadn’t a clue what he should do about the paperwork.
“Where do I get the form to fill out, where do I get it? Do I have to shout? Is it hereabout?” Cyclops said and his forty eyes blinked.
“How should we know,” said the mayor Lon Lonson, who came from Wisconsin. “All we know is how to approve them.”
And when he took a closer look at She-Cyclops he added,” and did you also file the proper paperwork for having as many as forty eyes, when two is the standard and requires no permit but forty is a little ostentatious, and may be subject to such laws as may be written concerning so many eyes, and you shouldn’t be surprised.”
It was at times like this that Cyclops really thought that, yes, the best of all possible you is in somebody else’s shoes. She got out while she could, before she had to fill out permits and hermits and squirmits all day.
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