This story is part of The Pitt News’ April Fools’ Day special edition. It is… This story is part of The Pitt News’ April Fools’ Day special edition. It is entirely fictional.

Running a city is not actually a video game, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl discovered after a chance-accident yesterday.

The mayor announced today that what he thought was an incredibly realistic version of Sim City was actually his job as mayor of the city of Pittsburgh. He apologized to the full room in the City County Building Downtown and vowed to do better, now that he knew his job was actually real.

“I can’t apologize enough,” Ravenstahl said. “I thought it was one of those virtual reality things, like the Matrix.”

Joanna Doven, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said that the announcement came “out of the blue.” Ravenstahl had been at his desk, going over a report from the Pittsburgh Parking Authority when he accidently gave himself a paper cut.

Suddenly he stood up and shouted, “Dear God, it’s real! It’s all real!” waving a Band-Aid-enclosed finger around in the air, Doven said.

Following a series of difficulties in handling one of the largest snowstorms in city history, unrest during the G-20 Summit and his inability to make tornadoes strike at will, Ravenstahl realized that he was running a real city.