by GIDEON GINRACHMANJINJa-VITUS, Alternate Reality News Service Economics Writer
Labour Secretary Andrew Putzlaymandwiethdrew uses illegal aliens to pick foozleberries on his family farm. And, we're not talking about people from another country who try to catapult themselves over a wall like so much livestock over the parapet of a French castle, either. No, these aliens have to catapult themselves through the modernist intrauniversal barrier that is Pollock.
Say what you will about him (because Vesampucceri is a free country...for the moment), but you can't say that President Ronald McDruhitmumpf hasn't surrounded himself with ambitious people.
Each summer (and every third Monday of winter on alternating leap years), Putzlaymandwiethdrew hires between 200 and 203 Ponderosa Mahabharata of Earth Prime 7-7-5-2-7-4 dash zeta. The Ponderosa Mahabharata stand eight feet tall in what would be their stockinged feet if their race had invented hosiery and have six arms (their street performers who mime being stuck in a box have been known to reduce onlookers to tears). Allowing for the centipede effect, they can, on average, pick 2.3 times the amount of the succulent plaid fruit than biarmal humans; and they are immune to the poison which acts as the foozleberry bush's primary method of self-defense (at worst, it makes them quote extensively from John Hughes films).
The Ponderosa Mahabharata have not signed the Treaty of Gehenna-Wentworth, the document which regulates interdimensional relationships (and contains the recipe for transdimensional chicken soup), so we'll happily take their tourist simoleons, but we won't let them work for us. Not officially, in any case. However, some overstay their visas and enter the underground economy; when the eight foot tall aliens with six arms are challenged, they claim to be from France. Everybody believes them. Even the French.
When asked about employing illegal aliens, Putzlaymandwiethdrew repeatedly screeched, "Fake news! Fake news! Fake news! Fake! Fake! Fake! News! News! News! I don't talk to reporters who write faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeews! Fake!"
Pft! As if we don't proudly acknowledge the fact in the first paragraph of the front page of our Web site!
"What Secretary Putzlaymandwiethdrew meant to say," Labour Department spokesfluffer Jamie Dammifdodammdont clarified, "is that he has always run his business in full accordance with the law."
"I did?" Putzlaymandwiethdrew asked in wonder.
"It was in the subtext," Dammifdodammdont assured him.
Hiring aliens from a reality that was not a signatory to the Treaty of Gehenna-Wentworth is illegal, I pointed out.
"That is why Secretary Putzlaymandwiethdrew applied for an exemption permit as soon as this press opportunity has concluded," spokesfluffer Dammifdodammdont assured me.
He (or she - his (or her) first name is ambiguous that way) really knew how to put the ass back in assure. Still, why was I not assured?
"Because it's a crock of pottage!" exclaimed Fred Burfell-McPottie, President of the International Brotherhood of Extruders, Extractors, Exfoliators and Other People Who Work With Their Hands and noted Marijuana enthusiast. "A cabinet member asking for special treatment for his business from the department he runs? That couldn't be more of a conflict of interest if it had flown out of an elephant's ass singing 'I'm a little Teapot!'"
What?
"Conflict of interest has developed such a negative connotation," Dammifdodammdont pleasantly retorted. "But, honestly what could be more American than interesting conflict? Ninety-nine per cent of our films and three or four per cent of our novels could not have been created without it!"
What2?
Burfell-McPottie suggested, strongly, with much volume and spittle, that perhaps somebody who suggested that the minimum wage should be reduced to a bucket of porcupine poop per hour was not the best person to represent the interests of working people. "Working people?" Putzlaymandwiethdrew mused. "I've heard of them, of course, but I don't think I've ever met one. Still, if they washed and didn't talk much, it might be an interesting experience..."
"What Secretary Putzlaymandwiethdrew meant to say," Dammifdodammdont clarified, "was that you shouldn't knock porcupine poop: it helps make good things grow in gardens, gardens that could be some people's only source of food."
"Are you attempting to produce a news article about an alien race without quoting an actual member of the race about which you are writing?" Sammi Mahabhasammi, an eight foot tall alien with six arms asked as she grimaced while pricking herself on the thorns of a foozleberry bush. "That would seem to me to be the height of folly. The height of... Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."
Okay. I just quoted a member of the alien race the article is about. For what that was worth. Happy now?
Token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam was curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Although she was moaning, none of her pained utterances were recognizable as words, so there is no way of knowing if she was commenting on what was happening or not. If it was, I'm sure it was profound.