SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2017

These Fictitious People Still Sound A Lot Like Some People We Know

         Here’s another column featuring the same sleazy 1980s characters at the satirical Patronage County Courthouse, to illustrate things going on hereabouts these days, so our Persons of Consequence might gain yet another useful perspective on the news.

These articles are Beloved Whistleblower Publisher Charles Foster Kane’s attempt to encourage undiscovered young writers, such as the struggling columnist below who shares his acute and surprisingly accurate take on local Politics as Usual in satirical Patronage County.

“Holiday Price Hikes” By James Jay Schifrin 

        Yesterday in Patronage County, everybody was filling up his gas tank to avoid the holiday price hikes for the upciming Fourth of July weekend, and our three Cost-Conscious County Commissioners were once again complaining about the high price of gasoline.

        “Why do they always raise gasoline prices before a holiday?” asked Commissioner Filch.

        “It’s a tradition,” said Commissioner Swindle. “Clueless Consumers expect gas prices to rise, so when they do, they grumble about it as they pay it.”

        “According to a recent study, gasoline price hikes are a function of wholesale prices, not greed as some may suspect,” added Commissioner Pilfer.

        “That survey was probably paid for by the Gas Price Gougers of America,” said Swindle. “Have you seen the gas prices in Kentucky these days?”     

        “For the first time in years, experts are predicting that gas prices could set a new 2017 low in the next few days,” Filch explained. 

 

        “Maybe that’s because you no longer have to thank Obama’s Feckless Foreign Policy for keeping our energy costs unaffordably high,” Swindle added.

       

        “But that still doesn’t explain why gasoline prices always seem to increase right before a holiday,” Pilfer said.

        “That’s easy. Oil companies raise their prices for the same reason dogs lick themselves, Swindle concluded. “Because they can!”

This op-ed column first ran in The Blower on June 28, 2014 and never appeared at any time in the feisty Mt. Washington Press personally edited by eminently renowned publisher Dennis Nichols.