Nation's Presidents Day Celebration Completely Derailed After Local Man Mistakenly Elected Actual President

It commenced, as most troubles do, with the best of intentions. The good folks of Naperville had gathered at the Naper Settlement on a brisk February morning, eager to explore 250 years of American history in the manner deemed most fitting by the event's planners: through fun, hands-on demonstrations. The air was thick with the scent of woodsmoke from a blacksmith's forge and the palpable excitement of children about to create patriotic crafts to take home. The new interactive exhibit, 'We the People: Naperville and the American Story,' stood ready, its placards gleaming under the weak winter sun, a testament to the earnest desire to make history accessible, if not entirely accurate.

The first sign that the day might not proceed according to the brightly colored schedule occurred during the 10 a.m. reading of the Declaration of Independence by the 16th Artillery. A gentleman by the name of Frank, a local accountant whose primary qualification for historical immersion was a convincing papier-mâché tricorne hat, listened with growing agitation. When the reader reached the passage concerning the right of the people to alter or abolish a government destructive of their ends, Frank, a man more accustomed to altering spreadsheets than systems of governance, felt a stir of civic duty. It was not an unruly stir, mind you, but the kind of quiet, determined impulse that leads a man to reorganize a neighbor's tool shed without being asked.

By 10:45 a.m., following a particularly spirited demonstration of Revolutionary War espionage techniques by the Culper Ring reenactors, Frank had convened an impromptu caucus near the butter churning station. He argued, with a logic that seemed unassailable at the time, that if they were truly celebrating Presidents' Day, they ought to have a president to celebrate. A vote was proposed. A show of hands was called for. And Frank, largely because he was the one holding the gavel-shaped butter paddle, was elected President of the Naper Settlement by acclamation. The transition of power was, one might say, not without its hiccups.

President Frank's first executive order, issued from behind a display of antique spinning wheels, was to declare the gift shop a vital national resource and place its revenue stream under the direct control of the executive branch, namely himself. This was met with some grumbling from the volunteers, but Frank placated them by noting that this was merely an extension of Alexander Hamilton's financial system, and who were they to argue with a founding father? The situation escalated further when a group of children, having fully embraced the 'join George Washington's spy network' activity, began intercepting messages between the cookie decorators and the musket cleaners, reporting rumors of a 'pastry-based insurgency' directly to the new president.

By noon, the celebration had bifurcated into two distinct Americas. One America, led by President Frank and his cabinet of reenactors—a Secretary of State who had once played Lincoln in a community theater production, and a Treasurer who was excellent at counting corn husk dolls—had established a provisional capital in the Settlement's one-room schoolhouse. They were busy drafting a new constitution, which primarily concerned itself with line management for the electroscope exhibit and the fair distribution of complimentary cider. The other America, composed of the original event staff and a handful of bewildered parents, attempted to carry on with the scheduled programming, though the reading of presidential speeches was now frequently interrupted by diplomatic envoys from the schoolhouse demanding recognition of the new government.

The bureaucratic horror that ensued was of a variety uniquely suited to a day celebrating leadership. Permits for the black powder demonstration were suddenly invalid, as they had been issued by a previous, and now defunct, administrative body. A minor crisis erupted over whether the '16th Artillery' still held its commission under the new regime. The hands-on STEM fun with Benjamin Franklin-inspired electroscopes took on a new, ominous tone as the children, now agents of the state, used them to test for loyalty among the craft-makers. The creation of patriotic crafts became a matter of national security, with adherence to officially sanctioned color patterns being a key indicator of allegiance.

As the afternoon wore on, President Frank's administration discovered the immense difficulties of governance. A schism emerged between those who believed the nation's destiny lay in westward expansion toward the parking lot, and those who advocated for a policy of consolidation around the popular petting zoo. Tax collection—an attempted levy of one popcorn kernel per citizen—proved wildly unpopular and largely unenforceable. The initial euphoria of self-governance gave way to the tedious reality of managing a populace whose primary demands were for clearer restroom signage and more frequent hayride departures.

It was, one could observe, a not insignificant demonstration of why the framers of the actual Constitution installed a few checks and balances. The paralysis was nearly total. The 'exciting FREE museum day' was now a tableau of organizational entropy, a living museum exhibit of governmental gridlock that would have been far more educational than anything on the original docket. The celebration of American history had become, by accidental and literal-minded imitation, a perfect replication of its most sluggish and factional aspects. The patriotic crafts lay half-finished, the electroscopes stood unattended, and the promise of exploring years of American history had been fulfilled in the most unexpected way possible: by living through a condensed, albeit less consequential, version of it. The day ended not with a bang from the artillery, nor a triumphant cheer, but with the quiet, deflating sound of a parents' association motion to adjourn, leaving President Frank's government as a fleeting monument to the fact that some holidays are better observed with a bit more ceremony and a great deal less democracy.