Padding Parliament
The members of Shalampax’s parliament today authorized the disbursement of funds for a project to top all of the desks in parliament with three inches of foam covered with fine linen. It was successfully argued that this will make parliamentarians more comfortable when they put their heads down for naps, which is how they spend most of their time in parliament.
In related news, Members of Parliament also began debate on a motion to forfeit their offices. If the motion is passed, the parliamentarians’ offices will be leased to Shalampax’s private companies. Many people feel that this is necessary because businesses here are running desperately short of space due to the tremendous success of our spam and cult religion industries.
“Besides,” said Brokentoaster, a Member of Parliament, “we can sleep much better at home than at our offices and sleeping is all any of us ever do in our offices.”
It is expected that, if this motion passes, each Member of Parliament will be able to keep the rent received for his or her own office. This is believed to be fair as most Members of Parliament currently augment their pay by renting out their offices by the hour to adulterous couples looking for reasonably classy venues for their trysts. If the offices are leased to businesses full-time, parliamentarians will have to forgo this rich source of supplemental income.
Under this proposal, the only parliamentarian to keep his (or, in the future, possibly her) office will be the Prime Minister, who is currently Manexposinghimself. It is felt that the Prime Minister needs government-supplied space to house the staff required to coordinate the collection and distribution of prime ministerial graft.
Considering that there is no room for expansion of the Shalampaxian building this seems an eminently practical space utilization. Unlike the members of Parliament who can perform their duties from home, not all businesses are conducive to that.
I’m left with two probing questions: Is a seat in the Parliament a lifetime position? Does it require a narcolepsy diagnosis to achieve the required number of hours of sleep?
@David: In theory, no, seats in parliament are not lifetime positions. In practice, it is often so because the conditions under which our elections are held are so rare. As in most parliamentary systems, our Members of Parliament are “elected” at the same time and by the same process as our Prime Minister. For that to happen, we need most, or preferably all, of the coconuts in our coconut palm patch to be ready to fall at a time when the weather is sufficiently clement for us to stand outside without dying from exposure to the elements.
Shalampaxians do like their sleep. Plus, if you’ve ever attended a session of Shalampax’s parliament, you’ll know why they sleep so much … boredom.