Thursday, March 31, 2005

Irony Overload Cripples Indiana Town

Federal officials have informed the town of Richmond, Indiana that the area's yearly allotment of irony is already nearly depleted. Administrators in Washington blame a recent incident at Earlham College, a small Quaker school famed for their Peace Studies Program, where an Earlham student attacked conservative pundit William Kristol with an ice cream pie, for the shortfall.

"We just don't budget for this kind of irony use in midwestern towns." stated an EPA spokesperson. "We haven't seen this type of shortfall since the Durham, North Carolina situation of 1995."

The spokesperson was referring to the infamous baseball brawl between the Durham Bulls and the Winston-Salem Warthogs on "Strike Out Domestic Violence Night" at the ballpark. That single incident depleted Durham's irony reserves for fiscal 1995, 19996 and 1997.

"It was horrible!" stated Durham sportswriter Buzz Needer. "Nothing could be ironical after that. We had to resort to calling everything 'coincidental,' because it's far cheaper."

There are some hopes that such a fate can be avoided in Richmond. The EPA is working on a proposal that would shift some of Seattle, Washington's irony quotient to Indiana. In return Richmond would transfer some of their "all American wholesomeness" out to Washington state.

"It might be a nice change of pace for the folks out in Seattle." said Richmond mayor Sally Hutton. "EPA documents show there hasn't been an unironical moment out there since the late 80's."

Public relation officials in Seattle could not be reached for comment.

No comments: