During the past week the administration at Upper Metolius State College of Engineering and Poetry completed beta testing its Help a Helpful Ombudsman Find Help call center. It went live Friday.

According to Dr. Brent Woodley, Acting Dean and Dean of Acting, “It’s the layoffs. The federal government is releasing ombudsmen and -women. Onto the street. The first few were able find work in the grocery industry which created the position of Aisle Ombudder. That person wears a colorful floral apron and plastic shoes with motion-activated lights. As a curious shopper steps into the aisle, the shoes illuminate the way while the ombudder says, ‘May I help you find something here in coffee tea creamer hot chocolate broth and non-lumpy soups?’ Or ‘cereals?’

“Now we handle calls strictly from jobless ombudders. It’s a sad group. They’re helpers, you know. Helpful helpers to the fullest degree. They made it possible for us to reach the people in government that we needed to talk to.”

Your reporter had noticed that the velvet cloth that hangs on the lectern that Dr. Woodley uses for his press conferences and other special college gatherings has a hole in it and looks pretty tattered. I pressed him on its condition. “Oh, yes, we did make an attempt to fix that,” he said. “I sent Sonja Hems, our sewing expert, down to Jo-Anns to get a piece of fabric to repair that. Just a small piece. She came back empty-handed.”

Out of velvet?

“No, they weren’t out, but they have a two-yard minimum. We didn’t need nearly that much.”

I noted the spring budget meeting had already been held and the public might like to know those results.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Quite interesting. The cost of bags for the bases on the baseball field has doubled and in some cases even tripled. The line item for the boundary lines on the field is now way out of lime. The only way we could afford to update the fan seating was to buy colored planks and then hire bleachers to prepare them for installation. On the upside, we had bought wisely in the past, and now find our baseball players knee-deep in catcher equipment.”

Yesterday in the James Nasium Memorial Gym, Dr. Woodley convened the Annual Celebration Celebrating Self-Referential Celebrations.“Part of our mission is to serve the very community that supports our community mission,” he said, greeting the crowd. “Upper Metolius State College of Engineering and Poetry stands strongly upon its strong foundation of foundational strength,” continued the Acting Dean and Dean of Acting.

Following the speech he stepped to the north side of the rostrum and ceremoniously opened the valve atop the large steel tank labeled HELIUM  He2. The immediate hissing sound indicated that the noncombustible nontoxic odorless gas was being released into the tank on the other side of the rostrum, similarly labeled He2 Helium.  He pointed to the hose at his feet. “This is the symbol of the communication of talking between one another with each other together,” he intoned.

Dr. Woodley tried to get back to the lectern to conclude his remarks but the helium had found a weak spot in the hose connecting the two tanks and that place was looking as if an increasingly large animal had been ingested by a voracious predatory serpent. It eventually grew so large and buoyant, like a balloon, that it pulled both tanks into the air where they hovered, just off the floor of the stage.

— Lee Barker is a longtime Redmond resident, woodworker, musician, instrument inventor and most recently the author of the memoir “Plausible Gumption.”