by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People/Pop Culture Writer
Eating. Kind of important. Most of us will do it at least once in our lives. Many of us eat as if our lives depend upon it. Scientists think they do. Those who have actually studied, in any case.
When talking about the people who worked at President Ronald McDruhitmumpf's The Great Gattelslaughterby party at Mara-Lara-Dingdong, the importance of food cannot be overstated.
Margaret Teleportation, who circulated through the crowd with a tray of hors deuvres wearing a skirt so short you would have thought it was defying gravity and falling upwards, was enthusiastic about all of the rich and powerful people she served. "When would I have ever gotten to serve Peter Thielmenosecrets if I hadn't worked there? He grabbed my ass. Or Russell Voughtingisachore, who also grabbed my ass. Or Alan Dershatiswitzend? He complained that the staff at the event was too old - I'm only 20! - before grabbing my ass, but I could tell his heart wasn't really in it."
Teleportation was forced to take the gig after her father, Consiglio Teleportation, had to stop picking oranges owing to random Immigration Corralling and Expulsing Service raids on Caliginia orchards. "He has been a Vesmpuccerian citizen for decades," Margaret explained, "but he tans very well and he speaks funny because of the time a pelican bit his upper lip, so the family couldn't take the chance that he would be arrested."
The gig gave Margaret the resources to feed her family for three days.
Then there was Angelica Frauleinocredit, who spent the evening writhing suggestively in an oversized cocktail glass. "The thing that got me wasn't all the men staring up at me to see if part of my skimpy swim suit would fall off," she stated. "Get a grip, guys! That's what the internet is for! No, it was all that moving around in a space that made it incredibly awkward - I'm gonna be sore for days!"
Angelica added the gig to the six other part-time jobs she has, including: greeter for an accounting firm; professional drug trial subject; and sorter at a local laundromat. She was forced to take on the additional work because the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program were set to expire with the SNAP of President McDruhitmumpf's fingers.
She now faces the choice of not getting enough sleep or food. "Sleep is overrated," Angelica commented, stifling a yawn with a half-filled taco.
"The worst part of it was having to listen to these rich, entitled bastards whine about how their mistress doesn't like them, or their Board of Directors doesn't like them, or the press doesn't like them," said Joe Montanabama, who served behind the bar at the party. "Hate me all you want as long as I never have to worry where my next meal is gonna come from!"
Joe had had a thriving business as a plastic flower presser, but was forced to close when the President's tariffs made the cost of triethelynetriticalibenzosorbate imported from Kazakhstan too high for him to be able to make a profit. He found it necessary to take odd jobs while waiting to see if selling his extruding machines would make him enough money to live on for a few months.
"What can I say?" Joe said. "I like eating. It's a habit I've had since childhood."
"Is this going to be one of those articles that makes the suffering of poor people look noble?" complained the Alternate Reality News Service's very own The Biz Whiz between bites of Kobe beef and truffles. "Because we all earned our places in the economic pecking order, and there's nothing noble about - mmmm, have you tried the Béarnaise sauce? It's to die for!"
The Biz Whiz went on to explain that the party was actually an example of the system working as it should. To wit (debased over time thanks to excessive use of the TV laugh track): when wealthy people spend money, jobs are created for not wealthy people.
"This is why the wealthy more than earn the tax breaks the McDruhitmumpf adminis - hey!" The Biz Whiz shouted at Secretary of DefenceWarTwinkies Pete Hedaiggsethative, who lurched into his space and spilled half a bottle of beer all over him. "This recreation of a business suit from the Roaring Twenties cost over a thousand dollars, you asshole!"
When I suggested that at least it would make business for a dry cleaner, The Biz Whiz sneered, "You really don't understand how economics is supposed to work, do you?"