Non-Essential: Government Shutdown Hats

Three funding lapses in twelve months. One hundred and twenty-three days without appropriations, including a record 76-day DHS shutdown that ran to the end of April. The October 1 cliff got papered over with a continuing resolution signed on September 2, which moved the whole thing to December 11. Shutdown is not an event any more; it is a working condition. This collection is written in the government's own vocabulary, because the vocabulary is already the joke. Non-essential is a real classification. Excepted is the real word for the people who work the whole lapse without being paid. A continuing resolution funds you at last year's number until somebody blinks, which is also a fair description of most people's lives — and it is why RUNNING ON A CONTINUING RESOLUTION works on anyone who has never set foot in a federal building. Nothing here is partisan. The target is the calendar, not a party. Set mostly in PT Serif Bold, which is the driest, most official-looking face we have, on dark grey, navy, spruce and camo — plus one safety-sign parody in orange thread, counting the days since the last one.