The Ministry of Unnecessary Permits

Spoken

OFFICIAL: Good afternoon. You'll be wanting Form 12B.

CITIZEN: I just wanted to walk my dog.

OFFICIAL: Yes. Form 12B. "Application to Perambulate a Domesticated Quadruped in a Public Green Space, Tuesdays Excepted."

CITIZEN: It's Tuesday.

OFFICIAL: Then you'll be wanting Form 12B-Alternate, "Application to Perambulate on a Day Wrongly Believed to Be Excepted."

CITIZEN: That's not — that doesn't make sense.

OFFICIAL: Very little does, once you get to my level.

CITIZEN: What's your level?

OFFICIAL: Sub-Deputy Assistant to the Regional Custodian of Small Grievances. It's not a real job. None of us have real jobs. That's Form 4.

CITIZEN: I don't want Form 4.

OFFICIAL: No one wants Form 4. That's rather the point of Form 4.

Spoken

NARRATOR: The dog, meanwhile, had been waiting outside for eleven years.

CITIZEN: Eleven years?!

OFFICIAL: Time moves strangely near the forms cabinet. It's in the leaflet. Which you'll need to apply for.

CITIZEN: I just want to walk my dog!

OFFICIAL: Denied. Not for any particular reason. We simply enjoy the stamp.

Spoken

CITIZEN: Can I speak to someone in charge?

OFFICIAL: I am someone in charge. There's no one above me. There used to be a Deputy Regional Custodian, but he retired into the filing cabinet in 1974 and nobody's had the heart to tell him it's closed on weekends.

CITIZEN: This is madness.

OFFICIAL: It's Tuesday-adjacent madness, which is a different form entirely. Form 9, if you're keeping track.

Spoken

NARRATOR: And so the citizen left, dogless, formless, and considerably older than when he'd arrived.

NARRATOR: The Ministry remained open, as it always had, for exactly no one in particular.

Spoken

"This skit was created by DiscoPrincess — Royalty of the Night"