The Winooski — Vermont’s premiere local satire site — is founded and edited by Adam Hall.
MONTPELIER – Vermont Governor Phil Scott has had to swallow his pride this week and turn to his greatest nemesis for help: the state of New Hampshire. The Granite State, long considered to be Vermont’s drunk, conservative uncle, is the last state Gov. Scott wanted to turn to for help, but with road workers completely out of “BUMP” signs, and more potholes appearing every day, there seemed to be no other choice.
Experts had warned the state of the potential for a shortage on “BUMP” signs almost two months ago, but their dire reports were not taken seriously. “We can just use speed bump signs and cross ‘speed’ off of them,” Lt. Gov. David “Dave” “Zuck” Zuckerman had said at the time. But now the state is out of both “BUMP” and “Speed Bump” signs and have resorted to any sign they can get their hands on.
Last week, Zuckerman advised the Vermont Agency of Transportation to begin using “Speed Limit” signs, but to cross off the word “limit” and replace it with the word “bump,” and then to cross off the word “speed” as usual. This stop-gap measure was effective only short-term, as the speed limit sign supply was quickly depleted. With almost no signage left in the state, and every road needing at least two or three “BUMP” signs, the governor has had to beg for a few “BUMP”s from New Hampshire Governor Christopher “Chris” “Nunu” Sununu.
“I think it’s very interesting that Vermont wants something from us,” Sununu said, “after all those years of saying our maple syrup is inferior. They seem to have a lot of taxes over there. They can’t afford more signs? If it were my state, I’d just pull it up by its bootstraps and tell it to have roads that were less bumpy. But I guess we do things a little differently over here.”
Gov. Sununu indicated that he would be willing to provide the needed signage in exchange for “an unspecified favor to be named at a later date.” Gov. Scott has not taken the deal yet, as he is still waiting to hear back from the White House about possible federal aid, although most of the department that deals with national signage was indicted yesterday and was unavailable for comment.
