by DIMSUM AGGLOMERATIZATONALISTICALISM, Alternate Reality News Service International Writer
Romanian Minister of Public Finance Gheorghe Pogea has been toaded. And, when I say toaded, I do not mean that he was kicked off an RPG or had his character deleted from a MUD. I mean he was literally turned into a toad.
"Well, this is a - RRRRRRIBIT! - revolting development!" Minister Pogea told a hastily assembled press conference. Although he had to be placed on the podium by a staffer, he looked resplendent in a three piece business suit - hardly warty at all, really. "However, I assure you that this government will not - RRRRRRIBIT! - not - RRRRRRIBIT! - WON'T REVERSE ITS DECISION TO TAX WITCHES!"
"Witches do not have a large, or even regular income," grumped Guinevere Radolescu, the High Priestess of the Romanian National Union of Necromantic Engineers (PRUNE) and an outspoken opponent of the government's plan to tax the income of witches. "Last year, half of my clients paid me in sand. What is the government going to do with seven per cent of my sand?"
In addition, Radolescu scoffed at the idea that she was somehow involved in the toading of Minister Pogea. "Oh, sure, it's easy to blame the witch," Radolescu, an ancient woman (and I'm not using that word metaphorically - rumour has it that, in her younger days, she was the model for Helen of Troy), stated. "Who's to say the...the...the Union of Carpenters, Carpetsellers and Carpetbaggers (LMNO) didn't have something to do with this? I've never trusted that Antonin Mogletski - where, exactly, does he keep his hammer?!"
"Of course witches are responsible!" cried Romanian President Traian Basescu, who had his face tattooed entirely in purple in the hope that it would ward off evil spells. He pointed out that PRUNE's Web site features a picture of the government with ankhs over the heads of everybody who voted in favour of the tax measure. "Now, when somebody has actually acted upon their provocation, they want to distance themselves from it!"
"Ankhs are ancient pagan symbols of life," Radolescu protested. "We would never use them for nefarious purposes!" After a moment's reflection, she giggled softly to herself and added: "It's amazing what you can do in Photoshop, though, isn't it?"
Those suspicious of witches pointed out that, as of Friday, the image had disappeared from the PRUNE Web site, almost as if by...you know.
Then, there was the mysterious message scrawled in smoke in the sky over Bucharest, presumably by a witch on her broom, that read: "Surrender Dorothy!"
"Oh, that action was not sanctioned by the Union," claimed Antoinette Bogalescu, Junior Priestess for Public Communications of PRUNE. "If it was done by a witch, rather than, say, a hang glider with gas, she would have been a rogue element in our community."
Bogalescu, a woman who had settled into middle age the way dough settles into a muffin tin, shooed away one of her 17 children and added: "We're cooperating wholeheartedly with the Department of Public Mischief on this one. We all want the culprit caught."
"In a moment of financial crisis," President Basescu stated in a national address, "and, when I say crisis, I am not being metaphorical, here, this is literally - what? You've already used the 'I am not being metaphorical' gag twice in this article? Sorry, I - I didn't know.
"Let me begin again. We are in a state of financial crisis. Every citizen should be prepared to sacrifice for the good of the country. And, frankly, seven per cent of the sand you get in a year doesn't seem, to me, to be that great a sacrifice!"
"The President accuses us of not doing our part?" Radolescu muttered. "He should be thankful we haven't turned the Rulmenti Suedia ball bearings plant into cheese. Can you imagine what the economic impact of that would be?"
A boon for macaroni makers, no doubt.
Not all Romanian witches are opposed to the tax measure. "It's about time witchcraft was recognized as a legitimate profession," Maria Pantaleonescu, Head Steward of the breakaway Union of Mages, Macrophages and Martyrs, Local One, said. "You know, the Inquisition shouldn't have burned witches, it should have legalized witchcraft and taxed the shit out of it. Think of all the women's shelters and halfway houses that could have been built in the Dark Ages if they had! It only took 500 years for the powers that be to realize this was a better way to go..."
"Besides," Pantaleonescu, a young woman, if somebody whose curves are so minimal she could have a second career as an ironing board was, indeed, a woman, went on to say, "even if you oppose the tax, cursing the government is the wrong way to express it. According to a time-honoured bit of necromantic engineering wisdom, it is easier to catch flies with ho -"
"Did somebody mention flies?" Minister Pogea interrupted, a long tongue eagerly licking his green lips.
"Well, I think you know what I'm trying to say."