by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Crime Writer
Ernesto Mapatomonga seemed to have it all. A promising high school football career was cut short when an incident with a prune Danish left the big toe of his right foot (his running and tackling toe) paralyzed. Still, he was a good looking man (if you discounted the scar that ran from his left ear, down his cheek, throat and most of his torso, swirled a few times on his stomach and went up the right side of his body and throat, ending in a "w" in Times New Roman on his right cheek that he got from an experiment with a frying pan, two quarts of tequila and a scale model of Apollo 11 when he was 12) who married his high school sweetheart (she was only four months pregnant at the time - hardly showing, really) and embarked on a successful career as a digital redundancy salesperson.
As I said, Ernesto Mapatomonga seemed to have it all. Everybody who knew him was shocked (which recently got a divorce from awed and is no longer afraid to be seen alone in public), therefore, when he walked into New York's Grand Central Terminal and inhaled a penguin, killing 27 people and injuring over 50 more.
"I was shocked when Ernesto walked into New York's Grand Central Terminal and inhaled a penguin, killing 27 people and injuring over 50 more," said long-time friend and turtle bowling partner Adrian Rockalockashoop. "Although, he did it before rush hour - that's more indicative of the kind, caring person that he was."
This incident was the seventh case of mass murder involving penguins in Vesampucceri in the past three days. As with the previous six cases, pundits and pontificators shouted theories as to why such crimes were so prevalent in the country.
"It's the destructive power of the Vesampuccerian Dream, isn't it?" Eleanor Rigdigbigfigby shouted the loudest. "When people realize that they aren't going to achieve it, well, they just grab the nearest flightless waterfowl and snap!"
The Vesampuccerian Dream is that every person who works hard for most of their lives will be rewarded with a bathtub made out of solid gold. Although Reduhblican politicians have long maintained that it was a founding principle of the country, the idea actually first appeared in an ad for Fletcher's Rejuvenating Facist Soape in an issue of Tucker's Talle Tails for Boyes and Mens in the 1920s and just grew.
And, grew.
And, grew some more.
"People with plain old porcelain tubs are made to feel that they are failures," Rigdigbigfigby explained. "If they don't have a gold bathtub, it must be because they didn't work hard enough. Who wants to feel that?"
So, they walk into a public place and kill a bunch of total strangers?
Rigdigbigfigby loudly nodded her head. "You have no idea how emotionally empowering instigating a massacre can be!"
"What about Phillipe Delafardeleo?" token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam shouted almost as loud. Three weeks ago, Delafardeleo, heir to the Delafardeleo Barking Soda billions, inhaled a penguin at the New Jersey stock exchange and salad bar, killing 50 and injuring 27.
"He left a note clearly explaining that he found gold bathtubs weren't really that comfortable to wash in," Rigdigbigfigby thoughtfully screamed. "And, anyway, there will always be mass murderers who don't fit the profile - people using guns, for example. That doesn't mean the general idea is wrong."
"Yeah, yeah, that's all fine and well," Sheshutshotshitbam dismissively yelled, "but the real problem here is how easy it is for Vesampuccerians to obtain penguins. Vesampucceri has the highest rate of per capita penguin ownership in the civilized world, and the highest rate of mass murders involving penguin inhalation - do I have to do the math for you?"
Vesampucceri being an idiotocracy (rule by the stupidest), it was pointed out that, yes, yes, she did have to do the math for people.
Before Sheshutshotshitbam could get the calculator programme on her laptop up and running, current Vesampuccerian Spheniscidae Association (VSA) President Carlton Heshamsiglerant shouted, "Oh, please! You know that when penguins are outlawed, only outlaws will own penguins!"
The VSA opposes any regulation of penguins, arguing that the best way to stop penguin massacres is for every Vesampuccerian to be carrying one.
"Yeah, that argument never really worked," Sheshutshotshitbam loudly countered. "The Philadelphia Zoo was stocked to the gills with penguins, but that didn't stop Albert Pre'Desaliva from inhaling a penguin there, killing dozens of people and at least 50 bats in a nearby cave."
Heshamsiglerant said that the incident would not have happened if the bats had been carrying concealed penguins, but he was so unsure of the point that he refused to allow us to put it in quotation marks.
"Can't we just tone down the rhetoric and find a solution to this problem?" asked Rockalockashoop. But, he was speaking so softly that nobody heard him.