Template:RAGStory - Ava the Politician
The Willis family sans Heather, Rags and Shushu decides to take a vacation at Pamhouser's cabin at Lake Quill. When they go swimming in the lake, they discover that an oil refinery is dumping toxic waste into it; as they flee the lake their hair falls out, forcing them to wear powdered wigs until it grows back. Ava complains to Mayor Lee Kelso, who admits that he sanctioned the dumping in exchange for free hair oil. Outraged at Kelso’s corruption, Ava decides to run against him in the upcoming mayoral election. Angie and her friends become strong supporters of Ava's campaign, realizing that they'd be able to get away with almost everything should she become mayor. But Ava's campaign soon falters as Mayor Kelso proves more politically savvy. While Ava bores voters with detailed plans to improve the city, Mayor Kelso uses glittering generalities and statements completely unrelated to the questions posed to him. Following Deanna's advice to give short, simple answers, Ava resorts to similar tactics, dropping controversial terms such as "God" and "9/27" in meaningless ways. She eventually gains the populace's support and wins the election.
After taking office, Ava attempts to propose a tax raise, though when this fails, begins to use fear tactics to raise funds to clean up the lake. Her efforts are successful and life returns to the clean lake. She even has leftover cash afterwards, so she embezzles $100 to purchase a purse, much to Deanna's disappointment. Angie has also succumbed to the perks of being the mayor's wife: she has rerouted the town's electrical system and caused rolling blackouts to bring late comedian John Belushi back from the dead. Later, Ava is tempted to buy a $25,000 car, and Councilwoman Chloe offers to buy it for her if she will allow her to dump the oil runoff in the lake. Ava reluctantly accepts the offer, but as the opening of the new runoff pipe begins, Ava realizes the error of her ways and closes the valve to the pipe and resigns her position as mayor, stating that she was consumed by money and power, which led her to become the very same things she set out to destroy. Ava then allows Kelso to have his job as mayor back.
Kelso declares himself mayor again, but a random bystander points out that he has no jurisdiction to do so, and that the city has to have a whole new election to decide who gets to be the mayor of Quillsville. This prompts Kelso to pull out a knife and stab him, as well as two others whom he believes objected. Despite Kelso's blatant act of assault with a deadly weapon and the fact that he murdered several people in front of witnesses, no one in Quillsville defends themselves against him, attempts to arrest him, or question his moral judgment to be mayor.
