Mayor For a Day

A crowd has gathered at Whit's End, where John Whittaker and newspaper editor Dale Jacobs are about to draw the winning name in the Mayor for a Day contest, a promotion their two businesses have co-sponsored to teach young people how local government works. Curt Stevens can hardly contain himself. He has entered, of course, and he tells his unimpressed friend Artie Powell exactly what being mayor means: a big cushy office, bossing people around, and hobnobbing with celebrities all day. Artie suspects there is more to the job than that, but Curt knows what really goes on. As the name is drawn, Curt imagines his moment of glory - and the winner is Curt Stevens.

Mayor Curt hits the ground running with a speech promising to tighten the belt of city government around the waste of reckless spending, though he admits he only meant every word he understood. His office is enormous, and his secretary, Miss Primblush, keeps appearing the instant he calls, which unnerves him. He orders a hotline to the president and requests a celebrity or two, but his first real duty is cutting the ribbon at the Odyssey Vet Hospital - by bicycle, since his own belt-tightening plan has eliminated the mayor's car. The ceremony goes badly, with a scratching cat and a flock of birds on the ribbon, but Dr. LeMan explains something that sticks with Curt: the town once had a big, beautiful animal hospital, and it now sits empty on the horizon.

Then city treasurer Harvey Nelson brings an emergency. Acme Amalgamated wants to build offices in Odyssey, bringing jobs and tax money, but a rival town is trying to steal the deal. Harvey's solution is a land grant, and he sweetens it with talk of perks. Curt signs without any studies or surveys, choosing a spot at the edge of McAlister Park. At the press conference, Dale Jacobs points out the catch: building there means tearing down Whit's End. Soon an angry crowd is outside demanding Curt's resignation, the police are picketing over his budget cuts, and his precious new hotline connects only to a pizza parlor. Harvey cheerfully explains how a government panel can bury the whole scandal until nobody cares, because nothing in government ever really changes. Curt objects - what good is government if it does not change things for the better? - and that gives him the answer. He calls in Mr. Whittaker and Dr. LeMan and proposes moving Acme into the empty old veterinarian hospital, saving both the park and Whit's End. Then he resigns anyway. He has had enough.

Suddenly Artie is shaking him. The drawing has not even happened yet - it has all been a daydream. Then Dale Jacobs announces the real winner: Curt Stevens. Curt bolts for the door, done with politics for good.