Ten thousand dollars? Dude, no one in this hammer mill has got that kind of money. At least … not that I’m aware of. Maybe Mitch is holding out on us. (He could be a counterfeiter, actually.)
Oh, hi. Just caught me in the middle of a little negotiation. I’m trying to work out the terms on a major purchase. What kind of purchase? Well, I’ll give you three guesses. No, not a PA system. No, not a hippie van with 3-D painted plaster sunflowers sticking out all over the place. Give up? I’m trying to buy a can of soup. Yes, one can of soup. Not the greatest soup in the universe, you understand … just your basic, run-of-the-mill lentil soup, the kind mother used to make … when she made cheap-ass canned soup.
Now, I know your next question is going to be something like, “But, Joe … why in the world would a can of soup cost ten thousand dollars?” Well, friends, I’m glad you asked. You see, it turns out to be true that it’s an ill wind indeed that doesn’t blow someone some good. The current pandemic crisis may have idled millions of workers, put bands out of business, and driven legions to the brink of poverty, but for some it is proving to be some kind of libertarian capitalist paradise. Scarcity, my friends, scarcity …. just drop by the local grocery store and you’ll see what I mean. You get there early, and the hoarding geezers have already ransacked the place. (Hey, anybody who wants to use “Hoarding Geezers” as a band name can have it, my treat.)
How will we afford $10K-per -can soup? Well, as you know, we are an idea incubator here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. We put our heads together (mind you, not too close together … no more so than six healthy feet) and came up with absolutely nothing. Then Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, announced that he had secured a deal with the regional hospitals as an overflow site. I was scratching my head over this – how could anyone think they move keep people here without making them sicker? Look what this place is doing to us! Well, it turns out they didn’t want extra space for people … they wanted extra space for medical waste disposal. Mitch is going to cash in … and we’ll have dump trucks loaded down with spent hypodermic needles backing up to the courtyard entrance.
A bunch of spent needles in the courtyard? Who would be surprised by that sight?
I thought of that poster this week when the Rosanne Barr story broke. I will admit that I was never among her fans, but I like to think that fandom would not have kept me from despising her when she started hurling racist epithets. The fact is, that did not start this past week. Since her hey-day in the 1980s-90s, apparently Barr has been careening to the right, adopting and promoting bizarre-ass conspiracy theories, endorsing an increasingly more militarist and oppressive Israeli government, race baiting black women and Muslims, and so on. Clearly, ABC – which has garnered a lot of pundit credit for having fired Barr so quickly – never should have hired her in the first place. But then again, they are in business to make money, right?