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// The Inaugural Address of Chancellor Puddinghead 
// Story: The Inaugural Address of Chancellor Puddinghead 
// by The Engineer Pony 
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Fillies and gentlecolts, and ponies of all ages; esteemed senators, distinguished guests, members of the Earth pony tribe, and assorted riff-raff who happened to wander in; friends, Romans, countryponies, and lenders of ears—don’t worry, I’ll give them back afterwards—I come before you today in great awe and humility to say: I am super-duper excited to be your new chancellor!

I see Secretary Smart Cookie shaking her head at me from the back of the audience. Everypony wave to Smart Cookie! She’s probably amazed and astoundified by my improvisational skills. She didn’t think I could get up here and give a fancy speech to all of you, so she wrote out stuff for me to say on a bunch of cards that I seem to have misplaced. I think I left them on one of your seats. If memory serves—serves cake, that is—it was somewhere in the seventeenth row. Congratulations, one of you is now the proud owner of my first official speech as chancellor of the Earth ponies.

Not that I’ll be giving the actual speech on the cards. Smart Cookie filled it with a bunch of super boring references to historical context and administrative policy. But who wants to hear about that, right? I’m sure you’d all rather hear a joke. Ooh, I know a good one! A parasprite, a crystal pony, and three of a hydra’s heads walk into a bar. I think the bar is made out of copper. Or maybe lead. I can’t really remember. Anyway, inside the bar, they meet a changeling queen, a manticore, and a rock pretending to be a unicorn. The parasprite speaks up first. No, wait. It was the rock. Or was it the alicorn, who was cleverly disguised as a chair?

Smart Cookie is waving at me again. She looks mad. I can’t imagine why. The joke doesn’t mention her, so she shouldn’t feel left out because I haven’t included her yet. Now she seems to be trying to tell me something. Could somepony please tell me what she’s saying? I can’t hear her from here. What’s that? Get on with the speech? Well, tell Cookie that this my speech, and I’ll say whatever I want. If she thinks she can do better, then maybe she should have been elected chancellor.

Funny story, there. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought that in twelve short moons I would become the most powerfullest Earth pony in the history of ever, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. Ponies do that to me a lot. Look at me like I’m crazy, I mean. I can’t imagine why. But today, I here I stand outside the box as your new chancellor. I promised all of you I would think outside the box, and I intend to keep that promise. For too long have we been oppressed under the unimaginative regimes of ponies who only thought inside the box. But now that era of oppressive inside-box thinkers is at an end, and we are free to think outside the box! We are free to find our marbles! Fellow Earth ponies, we are free to go on our rockers!

Pause for applause. No, wait, sorry, I wasn’t supposed to say that. I think that was supposed to be a subtitle. Or maybe closed-captioning for the hearing impaired and the smelling impaired. I can’t really remember, considering I still have yet to find my lost speech notes.

I think there was something in there at this point about the previous administration and how my government will be nothing like that. As if! Can you imagine me ever acting like those ridiculous ponies? They argued about everything: taxes, land distribution, subsidies for farmers, the cause of the eternal winter that threatens to obliterate all life. They argued about every little thing and never reached an agreement on anything! Not even on the proper etiquette for eating pastries! Can you believe it? Pastries! If a regime is too divided to make important decisions about enjoying delicious confections, then we must question the effectiveness of that government.

Well, you all know what happened next. Those ponies argued, and argued, and argued, and then they all got frozen in ice. It was the great filibuster that never ended. Filibusters sure sound fun, don’t you think? I mean, who wouldn’t want to ramble on about whatever pops into their head? Like pudding. Pudding pops into my head a lot for some reason.

Anyway, I saw the whole thing. There was legislation before the Senate to restrict trade with the pegasuses. The bill’s supporters said that if the pegasususes weren’t going to cooperate and give us good weather, then we wouldn’t give them any of our food. But Senator Sliced Bread opposed the idea. He claimed that cutting ties with the pegasusususes might cause them to side with the unicorns against us. When he realized most ponies supported the bill, and he wouldn’t be able to get enough votes to defeat it, the senator decided to filibuster. He always did like talking, especially about himself. Why, he thought he was the greatest thing since—well, I don’t know. Something.

So the senator started talking. He talked for, like, a super long time. And the other senators started getting fidgety. I think some of them had to use the little fillies’ room. But they didn’t want to leave and miss the vote. So they stayed and listened to the senator ramble on about international relations and the balance of power among the tribes. Can you imagine anypony talking for that long? It sounds miserable, doesn’t it? Especially if you really need to go. Not that I need to go, or anything. Don’t be silly.

Eventually, the chancellor got fed up with Senator Sliced Bread and tried to put a stop to his filibuster. But that got other ponies mad, and they said the senator had the right to talk as long as he wanted. Then different ponies stood up to support the chancellor. I don’t know why, though, as she could stand up just fine without anypony else’s help. Pretty soon, the whole chamber descended into a big, old argument. Everypony was shouting and flailing their hooves. Sliced Bread just kept talking through all of it. I’m not sure if he even noticed anything strange was going on.

Well, you know the rest. I saw all of it from my seat in the Senate gallery. The door to the chamber was blown open by a huge blast of wind, and snow started streaming in. In just a couple minutes, the entire floor was buried in a foot of snow. Not that the senators noticed; they kept on fighting and rambling and insulting one another as white mounds piled up around them. And while the temperature dropped, their argument became more and more heated.

I remember seeing the first tendril of ice wrap itself around the hoof of the chancellor. It was the one time in my life I actually felt the tiniest bit afraid. The ice encased her legs before she even noticed it, when she tried to punch a senator in the nose and found she couldn’t move. So she settled for hurling more insults instead. The senator was about to take advantage of the chancellor’s immobility and kick her in the face, when the senator found that she, too, was frozen in place. And before long, branches of their frigid prison spread out to ensnare the rest of the arguing ponies on the Senate floor.

There they stood, each half frozen and still yelling at one another. They continued to argue even as the spreading ice silenced them, one by one. The chancellor was first. The ice caught her in the middle of a tirade about the folly of listening to others. She kept on ranting even as the ice entombed her, her face forever preserved in a sneer of condescension. The shouting gradually faded away as each arguer found herself unable to speak. In the end, only Senator Sliced Bread remained, still droning on about ancient treaties between Earth ponies and unicorns. Then he, too, fell quiet.

That was what happened to our old government. In the course of one afternoon, all of our leaders became memorials of a dead administration. Elections were quickly held, and anypony with a glimmer of leadership potential was thrust into power. I myself was quickly nominated for the position of chancellor when it was found that my cutie mark is a scroll weighed on the scales of justice. Though why I need to determine how much a scroll weighs is beyond me. Apparently that’s an important part of the government process.

The funny thing is, I had no notion that I was to rule the Earth ponies until that fateful day when I saw a government freeze. It was then that I got my cutie mark, watching Senator Sliced Bread talk and talk and somehow run a government by talking. It was at that time I knew: I could do that. I could ramble on and on for hours and somehow be considered a visionary leader. Before, I had been just another pony on just another class field trip, but when I saw Sliced Bread babble his way to power, I knew that would be my destiny.

And here I stand today. Ponies saw my cutie mark and knew me to be the right pony for the job. And the left pony. And the middle pony, too, I suppose. After three months of frantic campaigning and all-important cookie baking, I have the honor to be your newest chancellor. Some said I wasn’t ready to lead, but I assure you that I am! I promise you I will be the bestest chancellor the Earth ponies have ever seen! I promise not to burn bridges or cut corners, but to cut bridges and burn corners! I promise we will never need to go back to an old drawing board, but we will get a completely new drawing board! I promise that Earth ponies will never again be under the weather, but we will rise up and go above this cold, snowy weather!

Pause for applause. Oops, sorry, I did it again.

I think that’s everything, and it looks like Smart Cookie is waving for me to finish up. Either that, or she’s conducting an invisible orchestra. So now I will take my leave of all you wonderful ponies. If you’ll excuse me, I have some homework to do. It sure is tough being a little filly still in school while also running a nation.