Late spring back in twenty-twenty-six...
Went so strange,
From Wayne to Wayne - and quick!
What a race and what a Wayne!
Once upon a time, in the remote and mist-covered Kingdom of Hamden, there stood many remarkable things.
There were castles.
There were committees.
There were advisory committees advising the committees.
There were nonprofits supervised by supervisors who also sat on the boards of the nonprofits they supervised.
There were addresses.
Very special addresses.
In fact, there was one address so magical that it appeared to belong to several different places at once.
The Royal Records showed that 33195 State Highway 10 somehow belonged to multiple parcels, multiple descriptions, multiple realities, and, depending on which royal scroll one consulted, perhaps even multiple municipalities.
Ordinary peasants found this confusing.
The Royal Bureau of Address Harmonization found it perfectly normal.
"Nothing to see here," declared the Royal Clerks.
"Addresses are fluid concepts."
The peasants nodded respectfully because arguing with government databases was known to shorten life expectancy.
Meanwhile, the kingdom was governed by a distinguished class known as the Perpetual Supervisors.
Unlike ordinary mortals, Perpetual Supervisors did not merely hold office.
They fused with it.
One such nobleman was Lord Wayne of Marshfield.
For nearly thirty years he served as Supervisor of Hamden, guardian of committees, keeper of summaries, the hero of senior meals program, representative of WAC castles on magic addresses, signer of letters that start bigtime expensive lawsuits (for taxpayers, not for Lord Marshfield), attendee of meetings, and witness to countless discussions whose details somehow evaporated from memory the moment a deposition would begin.
The kingdom admired such dedication.
For decades, Lord Wayne appeared immovable.
Mountains eroded.
Governors changed.
Presidents came and went.
But Lord Wayne remained.
Then came the Butterfly.
Not an ordinary butterfly.
A Statistical Butterfly.
A radioactive one.
It emerged from forbidden charts and spreadsheets - filed (the horror!) in court, too - despite paywalls carefully constructed by the Royal servant Lady (that's a title, not an attribute) Gransbury who,
according to Lady Gransbury's very own court-extinguisher, surveils the butterfly's (and everybody else's) IP activity in the online registries of the DelCo Empire, the Empire that devours - oops - contains the Kingdom of Hamden.
This absolutely evil butterfly and her charts and spreadsheets carried dangerous powers.
THEY COMPARED NUMBERS!!!!
And the numbers begged - really, really badly - questions, really, really big ones.
And the worst of it - the absolutely improper and indecent butterfly left THA PAPER TRAIL, visible to PEASANT TAXPAYERS! CALLING UPON THEIR REBELLION OF THINKING AND ASKING QUESTIONS!!!
Lord Marshfield and Kingdom of Hamden royalty was ... how to put it politely - outed.
Panic ensued.
Soon strange things began appearing throughout the kingdom.
Citizens started whispering:
"Why do some assessments seem to float far below sale prices?"
"Why do others float above?"
"Why does the graph look like a butterfly?"
"Why is everyone suddenly angry at spreadsheets?"
These were dangerous questions.
Immediately the Royal Public Relations Wizards issued emergency bulletins.
The butterfly was irresponsible.
The butterfly was divisive.
The butterfly lacked proper civic attitude.
The butterfly had probably violated several committee rules.
Unfortunately, the butterfly continued flying.
Then another complication arrived.
The State Audit Turtle.
The Audit Turtle was a legendary creature.
It moved very slowly.
Sometimes so slowly that nobody could tell whether it was moving at all.
But when it finally appeared, kingdoms became nervous.
Especially kingdoms with overlapping addresses.
Especially kingdoms with public money.
Especially kingdoms with delayed audits.
Especially kingdoms where the same names appeared repeatedly on boards, committees, nonprofits, advisory councils, oversight bodies, funding arrangements, rescue operations, and emergency press releases.
The Royal Council assured everyone that all was well.
Emergency meetings were held.
Press releases were issued.
Additional committees were formed.
A Task Force on Butterfly Awareness was established.
A Commission on Responsible Spreadsheet Usage was proposed.
A Working Group on Excessive Curiosity was discussed.
Then something extraordinary happened.
Election races happened - yes, there were still those, even though the outcomes were, for 30 years, Putin-like - ("we elect Marshfield - elections").
And this particular election race was suddenly NOT Putin-like. Marshfield quietly disappeared from the race - without an explanation.
The Kingdom of Hamden gasped. Where is Pu... Marshfield?
The butterflies gasped.
The spreadsheets gasped.
Even the Audit Turtle appeared mildly surprised.
Court historians immediately began debating the significance.
Official historians explained:
"Pure coincidence."
Independent historians observed:
"That is a very interesting coincidence."
Journalists sharpened their pencils.
The Royal Public Relations Wizards demanded sanctions against the pencils and engaged some court-extinguishers of evil butterflies (the court-extinguisher toils overtime, since the interlinked fairy tale he filed two more fairy tale - PUNISH PUNISH PUNISH HER SHE STILL MOVES AND BREATHES YOUR HONOR!!! - thingies).
to join the previous company:
(as to the last one, the court-extinguisher was briefly dazed and ascribed the butterfly's husband's motion to conduct discovery into the court-extinguisher's magical representation of Lord Marshfield while at the same time investigating and prosecuting Lord Marshfield to the butterfly herself - because, guess what, these butterflies and their husbands are indistinguishable, don't you think? Especially to super-experienced court-extinguishers?).
While all of that butterfly-extinguishing drama was unfolding, The Audit Turtle continued approaching, The Butterfly continued flying, and the Kingdom of Hamden was nowhere farther away from the oh so possible federal raid investigating - without any bars from any court-extinguishing teams - the little discrepancies (for millions, potentially billions of dollars) in the Kingdom of Hamden's tax assessments, and into who got what under the table for these so-little breaks.
And somewhere in the distance, hidden behind hills, forests, committees, overlapping addresses, delayed audits, advisory boards, magical tax parcels, mysterious nonprofits, and approximately twelve thousand pages of public records, the Kingdom of Hamden entered a new era.
An era in which the villagers had begun asking questions.
Which, as every ruler knows, is where the real trouble starts.
But the main thing is - against the onslaught of the evil butterfly, the Pu-elections have taken a turn - from one Wayne to another. Now the Kingdom of Hamden will have Wayne-the-Financial-Wizard-Butterfly-Fighter-And-Another-Deposition-Hero - maybe, another-double-deposition-hero. With Kingdom's excited peasants looking at another 30 years of Pu-Wayne#2-elections.
Oh, What A Change!
