Volume XXX Feb. 24, 2012

Girl Buys Black PT Cruiser To Match “Team Edward” Bumper Sticker

Germantown, Maryland— Theresa Panagopoulous, the self-proclaimed “biggest Twilight fan in America,” fulfilled a dream last month that had been several years in the making.

Panagopoulous was only thirteen back in 2005 when she read the first Twilight book and has been a die-hard fan ever since. At twenty years old now, Panagopoulous sleeps in a room decked from floor to ceiling in Twilight posters and memorabilia. She has seen Robert Pattinson in person on three different occasions and has read all four books at least five times each.

While Panagopoulous is clearly an expansive young woman, her physicians refused to release her official weight to verify her title, thus leaving her claim of “biggest Twilight fan in America” unsubstantiated.

Regardless of the veracity of her claims, Panagopoulous received a “Team Edward” bumper sticker for her seventeenth birthday from her BFF Sharon Pratt but was not allowed to affix it to her parents’ car that she then drove. Consequently, for the past three years Panagopoulous has been saving up for a car on which she could proudly display the sticker in a manner worthy of her devotion to all things Twilight.

After holding down a job at a local mall jewelry store, Panagopoulous was finally able to purchase a car—a pre-owned 2007 black PT Cruiser with red trim on the wheels and doors. “When I seen it,” said Panagopoulous, “I knew I had to have it. It matched the colors of my sticker perfectly and it was the cutest car I ever seen.”

While Panagopoulous has dressed in mostly shades of black and red for the past four years, she has yet to get the Twilight tattoo on her back that she has been wanting but hopes her parents will spring for it on her twenty-first birthday. She is now making her way through her sixth reading of the Twilight series and driving her “Team Edward” car with pride.

-The Editors

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Prolific Saleswoman Seeks To Reform Delinquent Teenage Flunkies One Fast Food Drive-Thru At A Time

Rochster, Mich.— Debra Lynn Taylor-Biltmoore is somewhat famous for her impatient treatment of heedless, derelict youths manning drive-thru windows who can never seem to get even the simplest orders straight.

Taylor-Biltmoore stops at her local McDonalds on an almost daily basis for her signature large diet with extra ice, but when her orders are any more complicated than that, chaos inevitably ensues as irresponsible slackers tend to botch simple instructions, delete items, add unordered items, and prepare sandwiches incorrectly.

“Growing up with Aunt Debbie,” said Taylor-Biltmoore’s thirty-two-year-old nephew Timothy Schwartz, “we just cringed when the pimple-faced teenage patsies handed her the bag, and we prayed that they actually got the order right for once. Invariably, however, they would not prepare her finicky child’s grilled-cheese bun correctly or would put mayo on a sandwich that was supposed to be ‘no mayo.’ McDonalds was a rare treat for my brothers and me, and so if they gave us a cheeseburger rather than hamburger or something, we couldn’t have cared less. Aunt Debbie, however, would tolerate no mistakes and would screech, ‘Timmy, didn’t you order a hamburger?’ and I’d be like, ‘Yeah, but this is fine, Aunt Debbie,’ and she’d say, ‘No, I’m going back.’ We would all sigh because we knew what was coming when she pulled around the drive-thru again and bawled out the person taking orders, squawking about the importance of paying attention and what bad business it is to give the wrong order, and how inconvenient it is for her to have to come back because the kids in there were too irresponsible to pay attention and how they didn’t smile or even treat her politely. Then she’d ask to speak to a manager, and half the time the kid she was talking to was the manager. At that point we knew we’d get our correct order but with the juicy added flavor of minimum-wage saliva. Aunt Debbie would then explain to us while pulling forward that she herself worked at a McDonalds as a teenager and was required to smile, be polite, and repeat orders to customers, and she didn’t see why it should be too much to ask for the kids nowadays to show the same professional courtesy, no matter what they were being paid.”

Taylor-Biltmoore, who recently ranted at a company banquet about the whole hierarchy at her company when she thought she’d been passed over for recognition of her hard work, believes that people are lazy and inept precisely because most customers are too timid to speak up and let their opinions be known. She believes, essentially, that her life will be the counter friction to stop the machine of teenage incompetence.

Meanwhile, Taylor-Biltmoore continues to order her daily large diet with extra ice and remains committed to being the impetus for change among the minimum wage earners in America.

-The Editors

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Woman Obediently Jumps When Ordered By Husband But Reserves Right To Determine How High

Ypsilanti, Mich.— Noreen Badon, who has been happily married to her husband Richie for twenty-two years, fulfills her vow to “love, honor, and obey” him—but with conditions.

“Richie gets a real kick out of telling his friends that he just has to say ‘jump’ to me and I will obey,” said Badon, “but once when we were still newlyweds, he made the mistake of suggesting I ask him ‘how high?’ after he told me to jump. He wore the goose egg on his forehead for a week where my skillet hit him, and from that point on he has satisfied himself in just ordering me to jump and allowing me to determine how high the jump should be.”

Richie, who spends most evenings in his “man-cave” garage where he has a couch, pool table, big-screen TV, and his power tools, stroked his graying beard and said, “Yeah, it’s true.”

Richie seemed content with the limited obedience his wife showed him and called their relationship one of “give and take,” attributing the longevity of their relationship to his ability to back off when necessary.

-The Editors

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Paranoid Area 51 Snoop Suspects In-N-Out Burger Drive-Thru Attendant

Las Vegas, Nev.— Michael Yugovegatables* described his latest drive-thru visit to the local In-N-Out hamburger joint as “Nothing less than a violation of my privacy.”

The main point of contention seems to have come with the alleged “personal questions” the attendant demanded of Yugovegatables. “It’s bad enough,” Michael said, “when you order inside and they ask you if it’s for here or to go, but nothing could have prepared me for when they asked if I was eating it at home or in my car.”

Yugovegatables adamantly denied that the In-N-Out attendant had any legitimate reason for asking such prying questions and said, “I've seen the movie Red Dawn twice. Next thing you’re going to tell me is that that ‘security camera’ they have is actually used for, well—security.”

Incidentally, the name of Yugovegatables’ fiancée is Dawn.

Although a manager was not available for comment, an employee of the restaurant stated, “Actually we ask that question of all our patrons at the drive-thru. If the customer plans on dining at home, we place their orders in paper bags along with napkins and the appropriate condiments before sending [the customers] on their way. If they intend to eat in their car or are perhaps traveling with small children, we will instead place their meals in convenient, covered boxes. We also will give them a large piece of paper that serves as a kind of placemat, and we will always be sure to give them extra napkins. I assure you our intentions are far from sinister, but rather we strive to make the customers’ experience more convenient.”

Yugovegatables snorted incredulously upon hearing the employee’s explanation and replied, “I don’t believe it—not for one minute. I’m a fast thinker though. When they asked me if I was going to eat my order in the car or dine at home, I told them I was going home. Between us though, I didn’t give them the whole story. I actually went to my neighbors’ house.”

Yugovegatables remains wary of In-N-Out Burger and other fast food restaurants that he believes are all intertwined with the government in a vast conspiracy to usher in a New World Order. He parks on old forgotten roads in and around Area 51 enjoying his burgers and waiting to catch a glimpse of something implicating the government of alien cover-ups.

*Name changed to deflect unwanted government interest

-Submitted by guest contributor Michael Enzo Uttoveggio of Las Vegas, NV

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Frustrations Mount Over McDonald’s Shake-Mixing Question

Warren, Mich.— Tensions between Timothy Schwartz and the McDonald’s corporation threatened to boil over this week when another McDonald’s employee refused to mix Schwartz’s Shamrock Shake® with chocolate.

Schwartz, who waits with fervent and eager anticipation for the St. Patrick’s Day season to enjoy his Shamrock/chocolate mix, claims he sits at drive-thru windows in consummate horror each time he gives his order knowing that there is a fifty-fifty chance he will hear the snotty, dreaded, and somewhat tinny reply through the speaker, “We don’t mix shakes.”

“I have begged, reasoned, screamed, and impetrated with these monsters,” said Schwartz, “but when they decide that they will not mix, they are implacable. I can’t tell you how many times I have placed my order, been denied, and squealed my tires out of the drive-thru lane in frustration without ordering anything. The fear of rejection each time I go to order has wreaked havoc on my nerves so that my stomach needs the shake just to calm me, but when I am denied, I have no recourse. I could raise a fuss and try to demand it, but even if they made it for me, the mixture would almost certainly include saliva. It is a horrible and twisted catch-22.”

The particular incident that brought things to a head for Schwartz was Wednesday night when he took his family to The McDonald’s on Van Dyke south of Martin for an after-church treat. The conversation, alleged Schwartz, went something like this:

McEmployee: Go ahead with your order whenever you’re ready.

Schwartz: Good evening, I’d like one large shake with half Shamrock®, half choco—

McEmployee: We don’t mix shakes.

(silence)

Schwartz: You aren’t allowed, or you can’t physically do it?

McEmployee: It wrecks the calibration of the machine.

Schwartz’s wife: Ask her if she can put two smalls in a large—(leaning over her husband) can you put two smalls into one large?

McEmployee: Mmm, it’d be close.

Schwartz’s wife: (To Schwartz) It’d be close? What does that mean? Either it fits or it doesn’t. What does she mean?

(Silence)

Schwartz: It’s just that so many other McDonald’s do it . . .

(Silence)

Schwartz: (Sarcastically) Well, thanks for accommodating me.

(Tires squeal)

The Schwarzes immediately set out for the Thirteen Mile and Schoenherr location where their order was filled immediately and with no mention of recalibrating the shake machine, causing Schwartz even more agonizing frustration about the Van Dyke’s refusal to fill his order.

Although Schwartz assuaged his pain with promises to call the Van Dyke location and inform them that he would never patronize their store again, he lost his resolve when he got home with a stomach full of Shamrock® and chocolate shake, and, after dithering at the computer when he found the phone number, he went to bed.

-The Editors

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Skywalker Engages Emperor In Playful Repartee In Face Of Pitiful Rebellion’s Impending Doom

On board the Emperor’s favorite new Death Star, Luke Skywalker tried out his big boy insults against the highest ranking being in the galaxy as Admiral Ackbar led fellow Rebel scum into a carefully-orchestrated Imperial trap.

It was a sterile and foreboding atmosphere in which Skywalker, the up-and-coming prima donna of the Skywalker family, spat out to His Royal Highness, “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

Instead of the stunned, brooding anger Skywalker thought he would elicit, however, the Emperor calmly received the words, repackaged them, and sent them right back at the inexperienced, untested pre-Jedi when Palpatine replied without missing a beat, “Your faith in your friends is yours.” The Emperor then invited Skywalker to view through a conveniently-placed window his friends being decimated in a trap before the Emperor released the full potential of the fully operational Death Star. Skywalker, having been brought down a few pegs, found little recourse other than to temporarily give in to his anger and engage Darth Vader, who had been standing by minding his own devious business and was completely innocent of any instigating, in a duel to the death, much to the mealy-mouthed, rotten-toothed pleasure of His Highness Palpatine.

Eventually, however, Calrissian’s prescient prediction came true: Solo got the shields down, and the Falcon exposed the Death Star’s unfortunately exposable weakness when they single-handedly brought the scheming of the Empire to a screeching halt, giving cause to all furry Endor creatures to celebrate with primeval singing, dancing, and Stormtrooper-helmet bongo drumming.

“Ya bested me this time, kid,” Palpatine seemed to say as he plummeted screaming into the black abyss two hundred meters below the fray, “but I’ve got yer number!” Meanwhile, Luke and Darth shared a familial chuckle before Luke set his father ablaze atop a makeshift funeral pyre after narrowly escaping the destruction of the Death Star, rendering it non-fully operational if not completely useless.

-The Editors