"Thank you Constance for that riveting demonstration. I can honestly say you have taken what I want to be when I grow up to a place nobody would have guessed it could go.

     Your demonstration was both informative and well planned. The skills you performed your demonstration with are probably unmatched, assuredly for a person of your age.

     I am both impressed and disturbed by your embalming technique. I am almost certain the frog should not have been alive when you started the process, but it seemed like you had done it quite a few times so I went against my better judgment and allowed you to continue. I’m sure that will come back on me soon, I hope.
      In the meantime there are some people who would also like to . . . congratulate you . . . and your family on your demonstration. Normally it would have been the school counselor but she has apparently taken a leave of absence. Something I wish I had thought of before continuing with this lesson.
     But c’est la vie, as they say in France. Which I hear are the last known whereabouts of Mr. Rudy."

Class gasps….

     “We’re not supposed to talk about Mr. Rudy. Remember the big lecture we all got about it from those strange people.”
     “Strange people. . . . lecture. That’s one way to put it. Another would be interrogation by the FBI, but I like your way of seeing it better.

    I also like to think that it's this place that's completely driving me unsane, and not something i'm doing.

I will live in France when it finally happens, at least in my mind.

     Is it normal to look forward to going bonkers? ”
     “We’re not supposed to use that word here.”
     “Which word?”

The student whispers “N-o-r-m-a-l.”

     “Oh that’s right, and you can’t use the c word either.”
     The teacher whispers “C-r-a-z-y”.

​

     Anyway, as soon as the class can compose itself we will have our next student present his theme of “What I want to be when I grow up".

​

A student walks to the front of class with papers in his hand, and begins to speak with an heir of determination, and says:

     “When I grow up I want to be the Mayor of Hell.”

     “Stop! Just stop. I don’t know what you kids are up to but I’ve had it. That is not what you want to be when you grow up. Do you even know what  Hell is? “
     “Yes ma'am I do. I hear the grown ups talk about it all the time. It’s hotter than hell out there, it's worse than hell, hell this, hell that.        It seems like Hell might be a better place than this, and if it is, I want to be the guy in charge, you know, the Mayor.”
     “What will probably be my last official act as your teacher I want you to write a letter to the Mayor of this town and see what he says about it.”
     “Does that mean I get an A?”
     ”I guess that depends on his answer. I probably won't be grading this anyway. I can already smell the baguettes. Oui. I am looking forward to it.”

Several days later a letter arrived addressed to the future mayor.

To the future Mayor:

     I come in to start my day with the same positive attitude I have everyday. “It won't be like yesterday". Then the phone rings.
     Usually it's some complaint about some dog owner who let their dog use the bathroom in public or in somebody’s yard. I would love to know how the dog community seems to think it's OK for everyone else to have to deal with their dog's poop. If they don’t want to deal with it why should everybody else have to. I often dreamed of making it officially OK to let humans use the bathroom in the yard of any dog owner who lets their dog do this but for some reason people think that would be going a bit too far. So, I won't encourage anyone to do this but I can see how it could happen.
     Don’t get me started on the ones riding around with a dog hanging out of the window. Those people have enough problems paying attention as it is, the last thing they need is something else to distract them. I think I can probably get that one on the books as a matter of public safety. Time will tell.
     Speaking of people who can’t pay attention while driving there's all those people driving around staring at their phones. Not just teenagers. ALL AGE GROUPS. The most competent drivers, for the most part, are the ones who aren’t old enough to have a phone. Which gets younger every year. But that seems to be a problem in this country as a whole which is a whole other can of worms. For convenience sake I’ll stick to my little local phenomenon which is what I believe we are calling them now..
     Then there was the report of the human trafficking brunches.  Not a joke. People seem to have thought there was some weird human trafficking going on at weird brunches. I have to admit it did look pretty strange. Almost like an auction. The creepiest auction you have ever seen. 
     Allegedly, it is part of some weird traditions held on to by some culture clinging to things from over 200 years ago, that supposedly ended with a war. How slow exactly does it take good news to travel.
     I still get complaints from those people on a weekly basis. They seem to think I work for them. Like this whole place exists strictly for them and we're all here to serve with a smile. 
     This isn't IHOP.

     I couldn’t care less who your great grandaddy was, or your mom or dad, who are you, and what are YOU doing.
     It all seemed very cultish to me but that's another word people don't like thrown around here. Cultist.
   Yes, there are at least 3 separate cults here. . . .that I know of. The number of groups that could, and should be labelled as a cult is a lot higher than that. I don’t know if you’ve tried telling a certain group that doing whatever a creepy old man in fancy dress says means you’re part of a cult, but they don't like it.
     They usually respond with your going to hell. End of discussion.
Like they have the authority to make those decisions. 
     Come on people were not in the dark ages anymore. There’s a book. Read it.

                                               (Spoiler alert! Most of that stuff is NOT in there.) 
     There are some other ones who should be labeled as cults too but that seems to be the biggest.

As far as I know Jesus never mentioned a dress code.

     That all happens before lunch, which I usually spend with my face on my palms repeating the phrase, WHY DID I TAKE THIS JOB?
     After lunch is usually pretty boring, or I’m numb from the morning and I don't remember much of what goes on.
     There was a recent incident about a street leaking. That’s right, a leaking street. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to. I often wish I was just making it all up to keep from being bored at my office, but I’m not.
     Did I mention the money missing from the city? Not a few dollars either. . millions. Millions of dollars are missing from the city budget. It’s not a very big city either.

     How could a place this size possibly be getting enough money from the government to lose millions of dollars. That one is actually solvable, well part of it is. The population is nowhere as large as being recorded.

     It’s probably only about half as many people as they are claiming. 

     That accounts for some of it but where the money is going hasn’t been solved yet, but it wouldn't take a smart person a long time to look around and figure it out. There are some very oversized homes here.

    Where is their money coming from, you ask. Good question. fortunately Not my job or problem.
       But I’m sure that the person whose job it is, is looking for it, and they don't forget.
            Honestly, for a place to lose that much money you'd think we'd have better streets. 

     
. . .or a theater . . .maybe a museum. . educational things. . but we don’t want people thinking for themselves . . .

​

But alas, no.  Our streets leak.

 Leaking streets. My therapist will have a field day with that one day.

     But I digress.

     Another good question would be why is the hospital the biggest building in town, and there’s another one 15 minutes away, and a bigger one fifteen minutes further.           Go the other direction and in 30 to 45 minutes you have 3 even bigger hospitals. I wonder what the problem is?
     Could it be the vast number of fast food places and sketchy eateries? Fueling the pharmaceutical business that feeds into the hospital  . .
     Curious, but that's a bit bigger than me. I’m just a guy . . . 

. . .
     There was also a complaint about an Amish terrorist group at the beach playing volleyball. Honestly what would the Amish be doing here? Just because they were in Amish clothes and beards didn’t mean they were Amish, just that they wanted people to think they were. The SUV’s they got into should have given that away.

     As far as being terrorists, that might be true, some people were afraid of them.
     Then there was the incident with poor Mr. Rudy. but we are not supposed to talk about that anymore.
     I could go on but I think I’ve given you enough to make my point. 
     Yes I’m sure you heard the adults saying those things and I can see how you could be misled into thinking Hell might be a little better palace than here, but I can assure HELL is a lot worse than this place. Not that I know from experience, but from what I've read it's worse.

     it’s also permanent. Once you're in hell it's too late.

     This place could turn things around one day. That day might be a very very long way off, and I’m sure we will have to get rid of a lot of people first, but it could change one day. It could happen .. . . 
     Unfortunately, as for you being mayor of hell, the last I checked hell wasn’t looking for new management.

     Though there seems to be  a lot of people applying for the job anyway.

I am not one of them.

I’ve made plans to be in an undisclosed place at an undisclosed time.     

     So you can have my job.​

​

Sincerely

The Mayor Of NOT-Hell