by ELIAZAR ORPOISONEDHALLIWELL, Alternate Reality News Service Environment Writer
The north 40 of Owen Willsaveonatten's farm is made up of lumpy grey blobs of fruit. The south 40 is made up of ashy grey strips of oblong, vertical fruit. The west 50 is made up of ashy grey blobs that look like...blobs. And the east 50 (numbers may not add up to 100 because they aren't percentages) looks to be in the best shape, probably because it lays follow.
"Gungh...guhh...guhh," Willsaveonatten commented.
"Mister Willsaveonatten speaks for all of Vesampucceri's farmers in saying how grateful he is that we finally have a government that is looking out for their interests," said Commerce Secretary Howard Slutnickotiemowt.
"Gungh...guhh...guhh," Willsaveonatten repeated.
"No need to thank me," the Commerce Secretary waved away the presumed paean. "I love helping entrepreneurs and small business people like you!"
"Gungh...guhh guhh!" Willsaveonatten responded with a hand gesture which suggested that he was not thanking the Commerce Secretary. Not thanking him with a special passion.
Two policies of the administration of President Ronald McDruhitmumpf have contributed to turning Willsaveonatten's farm into a hellscape out of a Max Maxine movie. Because nothing is ever simple for this administration.
The first is the Immigration Corralling and Expulsing Service (ICES)'s policy of arresting and deporting anything brown (reportedly including pinto beans, stacks of wood, and certain stone buildings in New Yoricknuhemwell, an embarrassing result which prompted it to change the policy to "anything brown that moves"). This led to all of the people who used to pick his fruit being either arrested and deported or not coming to work out of fear of being arrested and deported.
"Gungh...guhh...guhh guhh guhh guhh!" Willsaveonatten explained that the only people who ended up picking fruit were him and his 12 year-old son Persephony...unless he was chirruping the chorus to a sixties novelty song. Some possibilities are too much fun to reject out of hand.
The other factor in the ashification of Willsaveonatten's crops was Global Hot as Hellification, which popped the long, thin, vertical crop like it was corn, then turned it to ashes. Unhappy that it hadn't started a fire, Global Hot as Hellification began trying to turn the ashes into their constituent elements (primarily carbon and shattered dreams).
"I'm ruined!" Willsaveonatten complained bitterly (he was not hoppy, clearly). "Before this happened, my profit margin was so thin that you could mistake it for a supermodel! It's only a matter of seconds before the bank forecloses on my mortgage and sells the property to the government to turn into a prison for illegals!"
Illegals? I think I liked it better when he said, "Gungh...guhh...guhh guhh!"
"If I may...?"
Nobelthingido Prize winning economist Paul Krugalougieman? By all means, interrupt!
"One of Vesampucceri's advantages is that the country's land covers so many climates that we can grow almost all the food we consume," Krugalougieman interrupted...by invitation. "At least, that used to be the case. Thanks to the policies of this administration, locally grown food will be much harder to find. Remember President McDruhitmumpf boasting about how much he was going to lower prices? Yeah. No. Expect food costs to skyrocket."
That's –
"Sorry. Not finished," Krugalougieman continued over me. "Remember how the President said he was going to make Vesampucceri great again? Yeah. No. The only way we may be able to feed ourselves is by buying food from other countries. Including China. Can you say, 'Awkward?' I can and did!"
That's horrible!
"Did you think that when people called economics 'the dismal science,' they were being ironic?" Krugalougieman asked. "Sure, economists have been known to throw some bitchin' parties, but..."
I asked Krugalougieman which economist had ever thrown a bitchin' party. He smiled, as if I had just proven his point.
"Yeaaaah," commented token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam, "the only satisfaction anybody can take from this period in our nation's history is that capitalism is eating the faces of people who had convinced themselves that capitalism couldn't possibly be coming to eat their faces."
"Gungh...guhh...guhh!" Willsaveonatten protested.
"Dude!" the token smart person shouted. "You have a huge "McDruhitmumpf/Onvancewarpedtur Forever!" sign featuring the President as Batman and the Vice as Robin on the side of your barn! If you don't want your MVGA leanings to be so obvious, the least you can do is spray paint 'not!' at the bottom of it."
"Gungh guhh guhh," Willsaveonatten glumly allowed.
"It's a grim satisfaction, tinged with sadness at the folly of humanity," token smart person Sheshutshotshitbam stated. "Unfortunately, sometimes that's the only satisfaction life gives us!"