To the Editor:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy observes that when a government shuts down, citizens often assume it will eventually restart, like an old computer. Unfortunately, the Guide adds, this is optimistic: Some machines never reboot and, when they don’t, people are left staring at a frozen screen that says, “Please Wait Forever.”

The shutdown has now dragged into the phase where the words “temporary disruption” start to sound like a joke told by a bureaucrat who hasn’t been paid. Farms, families, and communities are learning the hard way what happens when government flicks itself off like a faulty light switch and then refuses to come back on.

Here’s what’s already stuck in limbo:

— H-2A farm labor visas

Paperwork is stalled at the Department of Labor, so farms desperate for seasonal workers can’t even get cases into the pipeline. Livestock doesn’t wait for bureaucrats. Neither do crops;

— E-Verify

Suspended, leaving employers guessing about hires. It’s like playing roulette with your payroll;

— United States Department of Agriculture farm programs

Roughly 2,100 Farm Service Agency offices have been reopened just enough to shove out $3 billion in payments, but conservation contracts and technical help are still frozen in bureaucratic ice;

— USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service staff

More than 95 percent are furloughed. Soil and water projects aren’t moving, because conservation apparently doesn’t count as “essential” until the next flood;

— Internal Revenue Service services

Nearly half the tax agency’s workforce has been furloughed, meaning refunds are stalled and questions go unanswered — though the government still expects your check on time ….; and

— Transportation Security Administration and air travel

Screeners and air-traffic control staff are stretched thin, with delays mounting. It turns out “essential” means you can still take your shoes off at security, just in slower motion.

The Guide explains that in the galaxy, tax offices and airport security are powered by the same mysterious energy source: endless queues. When either goes offline, time itself wobbles dangerously, and travelers begin to question whether socks, belts, or paperwork were ever necessary in the first place.

The last big shutdown cost $11 billion in lost output. We’re sprinting toward a bill just as high, with the added pleasure of bottlenecked labor, delayed payments, and fields stuck waiting for people who aren’t allowed to arrive.

And in Congress? Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to seat Adelita Grijalva, a duly-elected Democrat from Arizona. It’s so extreme the state’s attorney general had to sue to make sure voters actually get the representative they picked. This isn’t “checks and balances.” This is yanking the batteries out of the democracy remote and pretending it’s broken.

Meanwhile, the shutdown has turned lawsuits into performance art. Trump has even sued the United States for $230 million — a move roughly equivalent to invoicing yourself for bad service. It would almost be funny if it weren’t for the fact that the same jagged Sharpie scrawl — a series of peaks and valleys resembling the frantic heartbeat of a caffeinated llama — now appears on Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday card. Officials refuse to confirm it’s his signature, which is rather like refusing to confirm that Mount Everest is tall. The Guide categorizes this as “Denial for Beginners,” filed right after “Nothing to See Here” and just before “Please Stop Looking at That Card.”

This, from the same man who once bragged on live radio about barging uninvited into beauty pageant dressing rooms — including those of teenagers — under the guise of being the “owner.” (On Howard Stern in 2005, he chuckled, “You know, I’m allowed to.”) The Guide would file this sort of behavior under Absolutely Not Presidential, just below Things That Make Galaxies Cringe.

And looming behind the shutdown is the Project 2025 playbook — a 900-page fever dream dressed up as policy. Its goal? To dismantle the so-called “administrative state” by hollowing out federal agencies, replacing career civil servants with ideological loyalists, and consolidating power in the presidency. In plain English: fewer scientists, fewer watchdogs, fewer people fixing actual problems — and a lot more yes-men with Sharpies.

It promises “freedom,” but only by eliminating the freedoms of others: rolling back labor protections, stripping environmental safeguards, shrinking civil-rights enforcement, and handing education funds to states with fewer strings than a badly tuned guitar. Think of it less as a government plan and more as a user’s manual for democratic backsliding.

The Guide classifies Project 2025 under “Recipes for Imperial Presidencies,” stored on the same shelf as “How to Cook a Planet” and “Foolproof Ways to Annoy Entire Galaxies.” It is considered one of the least recommended cookbooks in the universe.

If this shutdown never ends, what we’re left with isn’t leaner government — it’s no government. A museum of “Closed Until Further Notice” signs. Farmers with empty barns, citizens with empty hands, and leaders with empty answers.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy clarifies that when files of great public interest vanish — such as the Epstein papers — they do not disappear. They are carefully rerouted into the Galactic Archive of Inconvenient Truths, a vault so secure it makes black holes look transparent. Inside, they’re stacked next to the minutes from interstellar corporate board meetings, the recipe for perpetual motion, and every parking ticket ever issued to someone rich enough not to pay. Visitors are strictly forbidden, though billionaires are granted lifetime memberships with complimentary golf passes.

The Guide finally advises that, if your government remains permanently closed, you should at least keep the “Closed Until Further Notice” signs — they make excellent souvenirs on planets where democracy is considered an endangered species.

Emily Vincent

Berne