It was a very merry Christmas.
Old Mother Hubbard gathered her 17 children around her. Actually, the children couldn't help being around her since they all lived in the one room; still, she gathered them closer with a stern word and a wave of her hand. "Now, my lovelies, I have some bad news to tell you."
"We live in one room and get a lump of coal in our Christmas stockings, which are kind of pasted to a wall because we don't have a chimney," one of her children responded. "How much worse can your news make things?"
"I'm sorry, Rupert, but you'll have to share your lumps of coal this year." The children protested. "Now, children, please, there's nothing for it. I've sent all our disposable income to Ottawa."
"Why?"
"Deficit reduction Margeurite, deficit reduction."
"Are you saying the government needs our money more than we do?"
"I did it for you, Alphonse. And the rest of you children. When you all grow up, will you be able to afford to pay off the massive national debt?"
"We're not able to do it now!"
"No, Samuel, my mind is made up. This is the season for charity, and the federal government insists it needs it more than we do!"
"What about our cup of special Christmas gruel?"
Old Mother Hubbard looked her youngest straight in the eye, her heart close to bursting. "Oh, Baby," she said, "of course you'll get your special Christmas gruel this year."
"Goodie."
"It will just be a little thinner, that's all." Howls of protest arose once again. "Now, children," OMH said, holding up a pacifying hand to stop their groaning, "Everybody is making sacrifices this year."
"What about the Maz?"
"Hildegard!" OMH blurted. "The Honourable Minister of Finance Donald Mazankowski had to sacrifice as much as anybody! More than most!"
"Like what?"
"Well, he wouldn't be the one to say, seeing as how he's so modest and all, but I hear he's cut back his limousine use to every other day --" OOOH! "And he isn't nearly so quick to send free letters to his constituents, even though he is fully entitled to them --" AAAH! "And, believe it or not, he no longer dines at the Parliament cafeteria. That's right -- he has taken the most inexpensive food one could possibly find in Ottawa out of his own mouth! No, my lovelies, I'll brook no complaint about the Honourable Minister -- everybody is making sacrifices this year."
"I had no idea..."
"Why don't you let us go work on the street?"
"Begging, Jacobob? What do you think this is -- a Dickens novel?"
"We wouldn't have to share our coal if you were still working..."
"Now, Benito, we've been through that before. I had to quit my job when the foreman at the Happy Days Sweatshop threatened to have me fired if I didn't, umm, grease his lubes..."
"Why didn't you take him to court for sexual hara...sexual harass..."
"Sexual harassment, dear."
"Yeah, that."
"Oh, my Baby, you need money to take somebody to court. Of course, when they refused to give me Unemployment Insurance because I had quit, well, all that was left to me was Welfare, and all of that goes to buying you bulk gruel...
"No, don't be sad, my precious children. Gather around and I'll make a fire in the middle of the room with the worm-eaten wood you've collected. We'll have our special Christmas gruel and, after we've exchanged our lumps of coal --"
"Half lumps of coal!"
"After we've exchanged half lumps of coal, we'll sing carols and celebrate how lucky we are."
Yes, it was a very merry Christmas. For somebody.
