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Hey, this is just a quick reminder about how dumb things have gotten.

In what way? Well, take your pick. Today let's zoom in on Florida's bobo version of DOGE through which officials are auditing the state's counties and cities with a fine-tooth comb. You know, a small government, laissez-faire activity.

Florida's Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia perched outside the government center in Tampa recently speaking of "egregious examples of waste, fraud and abuse." Meanwhile, taxpayers are fronting $450 million for a tent city in the Everglades as Donald Trump tries to build a gilded ballroom.

All this contradiction stuffed inside an intellectual whoopee cushion. To grasp the dire cerebral rut in which we find ourselves, to process the Dane Cook-level clunkers being zinged by the Republican officials entrusted with our well-being, we should review some abbreviations.

DOGE, or the federal Department of Government Efficiency, is named for Dogecoin, which is a cryptocurrency named for a meme of a dog with a speech impediment. Doge was popularized in 2013, which is the last time any of this was funny.

Not a great start, but it gets worse. Recently, Ingoglia suggested unofficially changing the name of the state's version of DOGE to the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight. That would be... FAFO.

A government agency nodding to "F--- Around and Find Out." Just as the Founders dreamed.

Readers, this is a wellness check. Do you think the above acronyms are cool? Safe space to introspect, truly. It's key to step back from a situation before it has enmeshed you beyond escape. For instance, when one is on a high-protein diet, one must ask: Do I really like this much cottage cheese?

They're making fun of us, you realize. Every law-abiding, tax-paying citizen reduced to locker room chumps, smaller boys pantsed while the bullies take lunch money out of our pockets on the floor.

Certainly each new government-sanctioned laugh line represents a prank on the press. Some readers have urged news outlets to stop using "Alligator Alcatraz" to describe the vile detention camp in the Everglades. Unfortunately, that is what the state named it! That is the name of the place! If some lady names her baby Catbutt Johnson, well, there's not much a chronicler of history can do about that.

This doofy crop of Republicans is like the warm-up act telling lightly racist jokes at open mic night. They bear little resemblance to the stuffier politicians of the past whose gaffes created comedy gold. Who can forget Jeb Bush asking an audience to "please clap"? Hilarious in the literary sense. Absurdist, even.

The current Chads cannot be called absurd. That would be too generous. They are petty nihilists who couldn't define the distinction if thrown in their own gator pit.

See, absurdism maintains that life is ultimately purposeless; in our quest to assign meaning to the meaningless, we inadvertently find the direction we seek. A fundamental quest for clarity pressed against a categorically chaotic existence? Now that's absurd.

The freshman marketing students cranking out these names and acronyms are concerned with one thing only: dunking on the perceived elite establishment to further their own ambitions. Amid any advanced discussion of philosophy, they will quickly pivot to a poop joke. To win back the rapidly slipping voting bloc in the manosphere, they will rename the Department of the Treasury something like TRAP, or TREASURE OF RECTUMS A-PLENTY.

If any of this made you uneasy, as if you actually are eating too much protein for your physical needs, please find the courage to step away from this endless showing of "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2." We have all had quite enough cottage cheese.

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Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

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