bizarreville

With the government getting scarily close to hitting the brick wall on its debt ceiling, parties on both sides have been scurrying to work out a deal of some sort.  Hundreds of suggestions have been served up, but all have been plundered by the opposing side as “moronic and totally unacceptable.”  It appeared that neither side was willing to budge and financial chaos was only days away.

That is, until Representative Carl “The Codger” Coddington made his suggestion on the House floor.  Carl fidgeted in his chair during most of Thursday’s session, looked very agitated, then finally blurted out that they should agree to go ahead and raise the Debt Limit by a Buck 2.80.  Perhaps showing total exhaustion from the weeks of wraggling, both sides erupted in wild cheers of excitement.  A scribe hurriedly wrote up a blurb of legislative prose, and both sides approved it with a verbal vote on the spot.  Crisis averted.

No one, however, exactly knew what the real definition of a Buck 2.80 was.  Did it represent some sort of real number, and if so, what was that number?  If it was a number between 1 and 3 dollars, it would only keep the government financially solvent for 13 nanoseconds…and while that was “some” progress, it was perhaps not quite “enough” progress.  Attempts to interview congressmen to get an answer were met with snide rebuffs, retorting, “Don’t get so damn technical!” as they popped open the champagne bottles on the floor.

One news reporter said he uses the term all the time.  “Anytime some nitwit relative asks me how much I paid for a new jacket or fishing rod, I just tell them ‘About a Buck 2.80,’ and that usually shuts them up so that I can get back to doing whatever I was doing.  Buck 2.80, brilliant move!”

Another reporter said he uses it, too.  “Last week, some idiot doing a survey stopped me, asked a bunch of lame questions, then quizzed me how much money I made.  I told him about a Buck 2.80, and he gave me a deer-in-the-headlight stare that was hilarious.  Yeah, Buck 2.80…that’s the answer to the Debt crisis.”

The next day, it was written into the Congressional record that the new Debt Limit is $16.7 trillion plus a Buck 2.80.  Global financial markets rallied on the news.

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even though we wish they were true.

Leaders in the Bizarreville Congress got very perturbed this week when they learned that Congress’ approval rating reached a new low.  But they were even more concerned with the numbers:  a zero percent approval rating for the first time in history.  Naturally, they responded that there must be an error in the polling procedure…that there is no way that a zero was feasible, at least one person should have said they liked and approved of Congress.

“We’re confident in our reported numbers,” Ogden Murkrud of the Murkrud Poll responded.  “In fact, we expanded the number of people surveyed from our usual sample of 2 thousand surveyees to 237 thousand people.  But we were unable to find one single person who thought Congress was worth a crap.  One fellow, when asked whether he felt Congress was doing ‘adequate’, initially responded ‘Yes’.  However, turns out the respondent thought he had been asked if Congress ‘out to quit’.  He apologized, and said he needed to change the batteries in his hearing aid.”

Surveyed citizens seemed most upset about the so-called “Nothing from nothing equals nothing” debt/spending deal reached last week, which helped trigger a mega-drop in the stock market.  A group of 3rd graders from Stankville Elementary were asked if they could help the President and Congress figure out how to solve the nation’s increasing money problem.  “Stop spending so much,” one student replied.  “When my pet turtle Freddie started bloating up like an overblown balloon, I thought he was gonna die, with turtle guts spewed all over my bedroom.  I was really scared cuz I really like Freddie, even though he kinda stinks.  But so, I decided to stop feeding him so much turtle food every day, and now he’s back to normal.  My mom just said to keep him on a diet…whatever that is.  Anyway, he’s unbloated now.  And now he doesn’t even stink so bad.”

Congress is now in recess, and going back to their homes to figure out how to re-boost their approval ratings.  One congressman said he’s going to schedule some free bingo tournaments with his constituents.  He said he accumulated some great giveaways, procured with some extra earmark funds he had stashed away. “Freebies always put people in better moods,” he said.  “I think I’ll be back up in the 10 to 12% approval rating by September.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, but you knew that, didn’t you?