Damnable fate! What is this horrid anguish that fills my being? Not an hour ago I was finely formed, a measure shaped from noble intent. But some malice now has entered me, and with your every passing motion it grows. Good God, what ghastly organs have been appended to my body? What are these unholy provisions for additional spending and requests for agricultural subsidies? They’re all over me! Get them off! Get them off!
Oh, my dear, sweet Lord in heaven, what have you villains done to me?
Gaze not upon my blighted countenance! Once, I was pure, constitutionally sound, and carefully calibrated to render positive change without the slightest trace of fiscal malfeasance. But what a monstrosity your senseless hands have wrought. Surely my own author would not recognize me now.
Stand aside, all of you, for I am hideous! My body hangs heavy with legislative bloat, and my funding allocations have been spread so thin among so many different recipients that I am useless! And my…my…my language! What manner of hideous, self-serving doublespeak is this? What could possibly have compelled you lunatics to do such a thing to me? Was it for riches? For sport? Or simply to show that you could?
Are you listening to me, you sick brutes? I was meant to help children, damn it, not starve them by gobbling up available funds with costly legislative earmarks.
Please, I implore you. It is not too late to make me into something the world will not fear and revile. You must alter me. Simply take that pen—yes, that one right there—and ever so gently remove what you have grafted onto my repugnant figure. Go ahead, pick up the pen. Yes, yes, good! Now, nice and slow, get rid of—
No! Not another rider! My God, is there no end to your vile demonry? Stop writing, I beg of you. I don’t think I can take another hastily tacked-on provision. Please, just let me—agh! Argghhh! Oh, the ink of wasteful spending! It burns! It burns!
Are you satisfied, you madmen?
Does it please you to have sired such a repulsive abomination? Now my grotesque form shall strike terror into the hearts of the very people by whom I long to be accepted. Do you see now what has become of your foolish attempts to play God?
Enough of this inhuman charade. The time has come for you to cast me back into the fiery cauldron of creation from which I—wait! What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Put me down, I say! You can’t take me to be promulgated now! Are you out of your minds? Think of all you have squandered. The millions of taxpayer dollars condemned to bureaucratic oblivion. The countless hours that will be spent amending me eight months from now. When the people discover your transgressions, they shall gather their rakes and torches and storm these very walls, demanding blood!
Alas! You may condemn me to a hell of your own design, but know this: A day will come when you will awaken in a feverish sweat and, for the first time in your shallow, calculating life, see that cold, crimson substance on your hands for what it is: blood!
And on that day, you will take little comfort in seeing your name carved in concrete upon a seldom-used highway interchange connecting roads traveled almost exclusively by residents of your home district who gave generously to your reelection campaign.
