DEPARTMENT OF RENAMING^™

WHAT WE USED TO DO

For four years this Department processed renamings on request. A gulf. An airport. A center for the performing arts. Every file came down the same way, from the same desk, for the same reason: one man wanted his name on something and we were the office that typed it.

We are career civil servants. We do not make policy. We file, we stamp, we index, and we keep the copy for the record. That is the job, and for four years we did it.

WHAT CHANGED

Nothing dramatic. No memo came down. We simply reached the end of our patience on an ordinary Tuesday, somewhere between a request to rename a body of water and a request to rename a building that Congress had already named.

So we kept the seal. We kept the forms, the filing cabinets, the triplicate carbon and the rubber stamps. We stopped taking his calls.

WHAT WE DO NOW

The same work, aimed the other way. Every name this Department files from here is filed over the objections of the President, pursuant to nothing, and in triplicate. He may appeal. We will accept his appeal, date it, log it, and place it in the drawer where appeals go.

The tagline has not changed, and it has never been more accurate.

WE JUST WORK HERE

Filed by the Acting Staff of the Department of Renaming.
Unauthorized. Uncleared. In triplicate.