The Imaginary Ombudsman

ATLANTIS. First of all, it’s Atlantis. Not Atlantis City. The minute you guys open your mouths and say “Atlantis City”, we know you’re just some fish-gilled, gawking tourist from Lemuria or something. Second, we don’t have gambling here. That’s Atlantic City.

METROPOLIS. There’s more to see here than fucking Superman, okay? There are six million people in this city.

SWEETHAVEN. God help you’re prone to seasickness. Go to Topeka or something, because we want you to leave behind tourist dollars, not piles of puke. Not that the money will do any good because it’s just going to end up in the Commodore’s slush fund, anyway.

SPRINGFIELD. The thing that makes me furious is all the government inspectors. That’s the curse of being a medium-sized city: you need help because you don’t have the resources of a New York or a Chicago, but the strings attached are a bunch of meddling bureaucrats. “Your town smells awful.” “Your nuclear plant has been cited for critical safety violations seven hundred and twenty-nine times.” “You have the lowest average IQ of any city in America and at least a dozen third-world nations where they couldn’t even read the test.” Blah blah blah! Just give me my matching funds.

FROSTBITE FALLS. I work at the ice plant. So do all of my friends, half of my family, and, well, pretty much everyone I know. That’s what we have here: an ice plant. Why we have Soviet agents crawling all over the place I’ll never know.

WESSEX. There’s no way ’round it, squire. This place is bloody depressing.

YOKNAPATAWPHA COUNTY. It’s 2013 and we don’t even have a traffic light yet. Last week I was down at the Hall of Records — which, I would like to point out, is actually a low-hanging shelf in Gerry Sue Praetorius’ spare outhouse — and do you know what? The Rural Electrification people left us off their survey. It’s like someone wants us to be this stereotypical tragic rural southern-gothic ruin. I have to drive all the way to Biloxi just to get a decent wi-fi signal.

EL DORADO. Oh, of course, señor, everyone is happy here. We are all rich, you know, with the streets being paved with gold and all. None of us have any complaints, unless you feel like walking someplace, or opening your eyes while the sun is shining. And I’ll leave it to you to figure out how rich we really are. Look at it this way: how valuable would dirt be, if dirt was your local currency?

TOONTOWN. Don’t talk to me about Boston or Birmingham. You want to know what the most racist city in America is? Right here, baby. You try being non-animated in this burg. My daughter went out on two dates with one of those crows in a bowler hat; I buried her in an envelope from the gas company.

FREEDONIA. Sure, it looks fun, but you try getting a zoning bill passed.

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