GAITHERSBURG – From the north side of Shady Grove Road, Mayor Jud Ashman and his city council members monitored the mission on Rockville's pedestrian skybridge in real time, watching and listening to the heat guns and blades that peeled away the recently installed Soviet-style block lettering.

Gathered in the Sanford W. Daily Municipal Center Situation Room, members of the Gaithersburg leadership held their breath and barely spoke as they waited to see whether a carefully crafted yet extremely risky plan would succeed, council member Yamil Hernández told The Montgonion. Ashman had been home, engrossed in a historical novella, but returned to City Hall for the suspenseful watch.

As Gaithersburg Public Works Department Special Operations teams arrived in unmarked Ford utility vans and began scaling the pedestrian bridge, the mayor and council could only wait.

The Gaithersburg Mayor and City Council watched the operation unfold across monitors in the Town Hall Situation Room. “It was so nerve-racking I kept my eyes closed the *entire* time,” council member Lisa Henderson said.

"It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday," council vice president Jim McNulty said. "The minutes passed like days, and the mayor was very concerned about the safety of our personnel," added council member Lisa Henderson.

There had not been unanimity among members of Ashman's council about going forward with the plan. The mayor had plenty of evidence to suggest the heinous Rockville branded lettering would peel off easily, as indeed it did, but there was no ironclad certainty it wouldn't leave a sticky residue.

Then there was the danger. Anything could happen. And indeed, something did. "One of the utility vans carrying the Public Works team stalled upon arrival and had to be abandoned. It was a heart-stopping moment," said council member Neil Harris.

Gaithersburg Public Works Department Special Operations teams abandoned their 2010 Ford Transit on Route 355. A City of Gaithersburg tow truck went to retrieve it hours later and found it was dead.

"Seeing that Gaithersburg Ford Transit in a place and in the condition that it wasn't supposed to be, I think that was one of the hardest… At least for me, and I know for the other people in the room, it also was the concern we now had to go to the contingency plan," said council member Robert Wu.

The contingency plan of switching to a passing Ride-On bus worked. In the end, so did the whole operation, and Rockville’s lettering was removed and replaced. Not before the mayor's nerves got a serious workout.

"When we finally were informed that those individuals who were able to ascend the skybridge and remove the lettering had also adhered the new text, there was a tremendous sigh of relief," said Ashman. "Then everyone let out a spontaneous cheer once Rockville’s atrocious vinyl letters were dumped at the transfer station and we had our people back safely across Shady Grove Road."

Publisher’s Note: This article parodies two completely unrelated events. Only the part about Rockville’s Soviet-style block sign letters is true.

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