For the Youngs: What to Expect from a Government Shutdown
For the young folks, this might be their first government shutdown as an adult! Like there's a lot of you who apparently remember where they were when Kurt Cobain died 17 years ago but the government shutdown of 1995 is a little hazy. It's okay, the mind is like that! You certainly won't remember the late 70s, when the government shut down constantly, and everyone wore sweaters indoors. (Sorry, that was a joke for the old people.) So you should know there's nothing to be frightened of! Except:
• Don't try to visit a national park. There won't be one there! Just some wilderness.
• Trying to get a passport? Don't bother! Not gonna happen. Just color photocopy your old one, change the expiration date and embed some secret CIA chips in it yourself.
• Amtrak will run in reverse.
• Usually during government shutdowns, people just straight up have sex in the streets. Why not? There's no government! And every time we learn, once again, that governments are just the last thin grey line standing between us and anarchy. Without a government, people would do what they actually wanted!
All I remember of the government shutdown in 95 is that I no longer had to do any homework. (I assume that's why I did no homework between 1995 and 2000, anyway.)
Will our northern territories be vulnerable to annexation by Canadians?
One can only hope.
You can keep Minnesota. Blech.
Congressmen wearing Hawaiian shirts, growing vacation beards.
You're also allowed to just walk into the White House and take ONE item from the First Lady's closet. Y'all lucked out that this happened during an Obama year. Take one of the Marc Jacobs tops!
Without the Division of Weights and Measures, who will prevent our country from falling to the socialist metric system or some medieval English contrivance?? Soon enough, you'll be asked to walk a kilometer in someone's shoes, fill your tank with Imperial Gallons, or maybe even think of your weight in "stone."
The horror. The horror.
And to all those who laughed at the Esperanto movement, I say with the government shut down looming, who's laughing now?
Gratulon!
Also,
Unu bieron, mi petas
chinga mein putos
It's actually worse than that. With nobody manning the Bureau of Standards, the metric-English conversion formulas will be allowed to float freely. But that's okay because I have been shorting the pint for years.
(The Bureau of Standards is actually called something else in recent decades, but I'm old.)
How long will it take the Industrialist Tycoons to build a Utopia for the rest of us? Bets, anyone?
I don't know about our Utopia, but I'm willing to bet their Utopia will have covered electrical wiring to keep out the electromagnetic radiation.
I have tinfoil helmets for that, thank you.
In addition, the NSA will suspend recording of your phone conversations during a shutdown. These responsibilities will be transferred to Linda Tripp in the interim.
Well played!
Never forget, "in the streets" leads directly to "in the Oval Office." That's a Monica Lewinsky allusion, young'uns.
Amtrak already runs in reverse.
Do we send Gaddafi and Karzai and the Taliban notes, telling them we need a minute to reload?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(Nothing_But)_Flowers#Lyrics
You should probably mention that approximately 2 million government workers will be (temporarily) out of a job. But at least there won't be as much traffic in DC and the Metro won't be that crowded.
Can we still bomb people?
As long as the Vermeer exhibit stays open, I don't mind a bit.
Any tits in that one?
Yes, but no homo.
I need to know more about the sex in the streets. Is this still scheduled to be performed between the Waverly Inn and the apartment of that actress Choire sometimes mentions?
Will the internet still be here?
Yes, but only via AOL.
And as usual Congress and the Senate have opted out of being affected by problems they create. They will continue to be paid, and they can keep their entire staff working. So they can continue to do all those… you know, real important things they do. Cheer up America, these truly critical government services will continue.
And if you're in DC, trash collection will stop for a week, libraries will close, DMV will close, and a bevy of other things. But, hey, LOL sex on the street!