“Rich Uncle Pennybags Called In to Cool Mortgage Meltdown”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK—Rich Uncle Pennybags, fictional character and mascot of the game Monopoly, has been called upon by Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to bolster the economy in face of the recent subprime mortgage failures.
“I was told Uncle Pennybags had lots of free cash,” said Bernanke. “But all President Bush had to go by was his board game moniker, so I had to call in the FBI to track him down.”
The international manhunt for Pennybags has resulted in a shakedown of the Parker Brothers, multiple raids on the Hasbro headquarters, and non-stop surveillance at the intersection of Park Place and Boardwalk. Credit card companies have also been notified to monitor unusually frequent purchases of top hats and mustache coloring products.
“If they don’t find Pennybags soon, I’m going to lose my house,” said Rachel Welsh, a homeowner and mother of seven. “And that’s not funny.”
Mrs. Welsh worries that she’ll have to cut back on her $1,200-a-month scrapbook budget to catch up on mortgage payments for her trailer in Walma, North Dakota. “Construction paper ain’t cheap,” she said, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
The concerns over mortgage crisis aren’t revolved around any one region of the country. Dale McCormick worries he’s on the verge of defaulting on his downtown Los Angeles one-bedroom “love shack.”
“But I absolutely refuse to cancel my DirecTV Titanium package,” he said, while flipping through channels his plasma television. “Like this, you can’t get this on basic cable”, referring to the Fuse TV show “Pants-Off Dance-Off.” “[Host] Tila Tequila is a total hottie from the neck down.”
Over the last few months, entry-level employees at Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan could be found running up and down the hallways, screaming like chickens with their heads cut off. “We’re purging money,” said one employee who had begun to compulsively staple blank sheets of paper together to “boost productivity.”
“My mom told me to be an accountant,” he said. “This is all her fault. She was wrong about the banking industry, just like that time she told me I’d get hairy palms by spanking the monkey.” After a long pause, “And by spanking the monkey, I don’t mean masturbating. I actually had a troublemaking pet monkey that needed spanking.”
“We’re working hard at finding Rich Uncle Pennybags,” assured President Bush in a recent address. “Like Al Qaeda operatives hide in manholes, we have a good feeling we’ll find Pennybags somewhere near free parking. After all, that’s how he got so rich!”