Mayo Clinic

There must be a line somewhere between a city's civic pride and a city's dignity.  Or, less subtly, how much will it take for some nationwide company to grease your town's coffers sufficiently to get you to change the name of your burg to something silly, something guaranteed to have the worst thing in the world happen, namely, having Jimmy Fallon poke fun at your town?

Down South in Florida, right about where the Panhandle turns into a peninsula, there's the town of Mayo, Florida.  It's not New York, or even York; there are fewer than 1,500 Mayonites, but the Town Fathers And Mothers, for a fee said to range between $15,000- $25,000, are willing to change temporarily the name of the town to "Miracle Whip."

Miracle Whip is an alternative spread to mayonnaise in much the same way a McDouble is an alternative to a Ruth's Chris 24-oz filet mignon, and it's a product of the good people over at Kraft Heinz, and they're the ones who brought this madcap idea to the Mayo folks, and found they have a deal, the point of which is to get residents of the town to switch to artificial mayonnaise.  But Shhhhh...they want it to be a secret!

Imagine the hijinx on film! The plan is to have film cameras rolling as trained condiment-replacement specialists go door to door to swap out sandwich spreads, by force if necessary.


And they're going to change the name on street signs and the water tower! Oh, the consternation!

At least, the only good thing about all this is that Mayo (located halfway Tallahassee and Gainesville) will use the money for city beautification measures.

"We aren't going to be boring Mayo anymore. We are going to be Miracle Whip!" Ann Murphy, the mayor of Mayo, said. "I definitely think this will put us on the map."

One little problem that arose from all these secret meetings and keeping the public in the dark about it all is that closed sessions of town council are in violation of Florida's Sunshine Law.

The town, the county seat of Lafayette County, Florida's second-least populous county, is named for a confederate colonel, James Mayo, and its biggest employer is a state prison.

Maybe they needed to do this just to lighten the place up a bit.

By the way, there's a town in New Mexico that used to be called Hot Springs, but in 1950 (when radio was still king) a national radio show offered prizes for any city willing to change its name to the name of the radio show.

And that's how Hot Springs, N.M. became Truth Or Consequences, N.M.