Thursday, October 18, 2012

An Accidental Act of Civil Disobedience


On Tuesday, as a stunt, the State of Tennessee decided to cover itself in plastic
Just like the picture of the state on a globe at the governor's daughter's school
The state's bureaucracy had a half-day meeting to decide what color they should be
Finally determined only blue would make any sense

The project was sold to the people as  providing 200 jobs to make the plastic
As well as another 200 to hand the pieces out
Michigan quickly announced their own project, followed by Florida and West Virginia
As the plan spread across the states, only Delaware was a hold out
They finally gave in after having heard one too many times
Your absence would barely be noticed

By Friday, plans were announced in Canada and Costa Rica
Followed by Holland and Brazil
Soon it became an international jigsaw network

Just the thing to save the world economy
Everyone seemed to agree
They just couldn't choose a united color scheme
Someplaces  followed Tennessee's lead
And kept to the primary colors of a  schoolchild's map
Which became too crips and the bloods for political pundits
Others Insisted on the natural hues found topographically
but were called literal idiots
"that's what it looks like in the first place ....  fool"
While still others insisted on the sepia tones
Designating a place of historical importance

North Korea and South Korea 
Refused to have pieces with interconnecting tabs
As did the Irelands, both Republic and North
And in a rare moment of frivolity
North Dakota and South Dakota followed suit

There was great debate and argument over pay scales
Especially in places accused of outsourcing
The work to locations without unions

Meanwhile many citizens, especially the elderly, resisted 
Refusing to budge or consider the matter
"I've never heard of such a thing" and 
"Back in my day, it was legal
To shoot government who stepped up to your door"
So Hollywood filled 200 more jobs
Creating the films promoting patriotic responsibility and duty

A billionaire entrepreneur with his own space program
Announced plans to capture the spectacle from above

CNN planned live coverage of the event, while FOXNews anchors asked 
Who is behind this mysterious plot and is it really a conspiracy
To redistribute the world's wealth

United in a plan, the world built the pieces
And distributed them in just eight short months
Only to have the plan falter and stall out again 
For six long more months
While America got her infrastructure up to code

The world synchronized their watches
With the first pieces to go aloft in Christmas Island and Samoa
Followed by the Chatham Islands and New Zealand
While Hawaii, Midway Island and American Samoa
Finished the tail end of the whip of the world's wave

Some say the globe was rescued from certain death
Some say we would've died of suffocation
Had it not been for Mr. Bill Campbell
Rural Route 2, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Who overslept and failed to lift his puzzle piece aloft
When asked about his motivation later, he insisted
He had no special foresight, intuition or knowledge
No planned resistance or political view
Repeating only a singular comment

"Was that supposed to be today?"
He asked

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