February 16, 2006
Welcome to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing
BUREAU OF ENGRAVING AND PRINTING
Washington DC
Motto: "Nosotros, vosotros, trosotros"
Welcome to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing!We have made some improvements recently, so please mind the following changes:
~ The coat-hangers on the wall have been removed, as results of our Spring 2004 focus groups have indicated that coat-wearing is falling out of fashion. Caution!: Please do not attempt to fix coats or other garments onto the wall where the coat-hangers used to be. They will not stay up. For the blind: please do not blindly try to put your coat up there.
~Our new mascot is Penny the money duck, so watch out for pictures of ducks that are now painted everywhere.
Fact Sheet: The Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
~Founded in 1861, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing is the third most boring government bureau in our nation’s capital, after the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Bureau of Pamphlet.
~The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints postage stamps and Federal Reserve bank notes, which I guess has to be done somewhere.
~There are over six fully automated machines in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, two of which must be kept turned off and in storage at all times.
~It is told that the Bureau’s architects wanted to "create a building with several windows through which laborers can look unto the world outside." Needless to say, this ambitious plan failed.
~The first director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing holds the record for "Longest time spent lying in state at the U.S. Capitol." That’s right, two whole weeks passed before his crushed body was dislodged from the congressional gear-room.
~Unlike Mitchell, South Dakota’s Corn Palace, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing recently removed its "Wild Bill Hickok: The Corn Version" corn-based diorama series, in compliance with a recent directive from the President of the United States himself prohibiting the display of interesting things in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. If you seek the dioramas, they can be found at the Corn Palace, and also Torrey, Utah’s Museum of Irregular Wild Bill Hickok Dioramas, and the National Archives.
~Did you know? The first director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was mysteriously crushed in the congressional gear-room. "This has truly been a crushing ordeal for our family," his widowed wife joked to the Congressional Quarterly.
~Please do not ask if you can take home some coins. This is not a fucking mint.
~"His pain’d screams still resonate to-day / Throughout the congressional gear-room."
Copies of this poem are on sale at the bureau gift shop, as are photocopies of a pencil sketch of the director’s crushed body that the police forced his wife to draw.
ENJOY YOUR TOUR, AND DON’T FORGET TO TAKE HOME YOUR
FREE TWO-OUNCE BAG OF SHREDDED UP BANK NOTES
References:
1. "Chimney Sweep Discovers Rotting Body in Gear-Room." Annals of the Congressional Gear-Room, Vol. XLII, No. 2.
2. "Gear-Room Travesty Thrills Nation" Congressional Quarterly, June 12,1873.
3. Holmes, Oliver Wendell. Poems About Crushed Bodies and Ghastly Limb Amputations (3rd edition).
4. "Wife to Gear-Room Crushee: I don’t miss you" Congressional Quarterly, June 16, 1873.
5. "Watch Out! The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has a New Duck-Mascot" The New York Times, 2/10/06, page A1.