Barack Hussein, Chairman and President of Oh bummer!, the world’s biggest chain of department stores, has written to shareholders, explaining why all outlets have suspended trading:
My fellow shareholders,
First let me thank you all for your continuing loyalty to the Oh bummer! project. Allow me also to assure you that this loyalty is reciprocated in my heart. However – and it pains me to have to say this – any more tangible reciprocity unfortunately has to be put on hold until further notice.
Starting today, Oh bummer! can afford to keep on only a skeleton staff of essential personnel, specifically our security guards and also the guys who turn the lights off and on.
This, I have to say, also means that no dividends will be paid to any of you for any foreseeable future, and Allah knows that this hurts me more than it hurts you.
Many of you will blame me for this unfortunate situation, and I am man enough to admit that, as President of Oh bummer!, I have to shoulder some – a teensy-weensy portion – of the blame.
The rest – most! – of it, belongs to the real vipers on the Oh bummer! board, who shall go as nameless as they are mindless, gutless and spineless. Oh well, if you insist, I am specifically referring to that boehner-headed viper John, who happily combines the mind of a cockroach with the moral sense of a skunk.
Still, in the good tradition of the Oh bummer! project, the buck stops with me, meaning that no bucks will flow in your direction. As this represents a most unfortunate situation, you are within your right to demand an answer from the board and specifically from me as its Chairman.
Why? I hear you ask. Why could you not carry out the inventory without having to shut down all the stores? This question, my friends, is best addressed to that boehner-headed viper John. For it was he who led the revolt against the product line I had proposed and spent all my adult life (along with some of my infancy) to refine.
This line of health products is guaranteed to ensure not only the physical wellbeing of our customers and shareholders but also their peace of mind. Allow me to reiterate for those of you with special needs what the Oh bummer! project is all about.
In a move never before attempted, if often dreamed about, in the history of retailing, all Oh bummer! customers will be obligated to buy our health products. Should they fail to comply, our security personnel and those guys who turn the lights off and on will force them to do so.
The derelicts’ charge accounts will be debited considerable amounts, and if even this measure fails they will be locked up in our warehouse. There they will stay until they accept that Oh bummer! only has their best interests in mind.
What can be fairer than this? Nothing at all. And yet that boehner-headed viper John persists in his maniacal insistence that this breakthrough retailing innovation somehow restricts the freedom of our customers and shareholders.
Nothing can be further from the truth. That boehner-headed viper John has forgotten the words of V.I. Lennon, the true inspiration behind the Oh bummer! project. Freedom, taught Comrade Lennon, is acknowledged necessity.
Therefore, all that our customers and shareholders will have to do is acknowledge the necessity of buying our line of health products. This will chisel their freedom in stone for generations to come – and let that boehner-headed viper John weep and wail and gnash his dentures.
In the spirit of openness and transparency for which Oh bummer! is so justly famous, I also have to share with you another problem – or rather another dastardly plot being concocted by that boehner-headed viper John and his co-conspirators.
As I am sure you realise, no business can operate without a bank overdraft. The bigger the business, the bigger the overdraft – to this universal law there are no exceptions.
Well, although Oh bummer! is the world’s biggest chain of its kind, our present overdraft stands at a paltry $16.7 trillion, barely $52,863.15 for every customer and shareholder.
This most reasonable overdraft is up for renewal in 16 days, which is a routine annual procedure. Yet that boehner-headed viper John, in cahoots with the bank manager, has colluded to deny our request to raise the overdraft ceiling to whatever amount I will deem necessary.
This means that a spectre is haunting Oh bummer!, the spectre of default. This creates the real and present danger of us having to shut shop altogether, not just for a temporary inventory, which is not an outcome any of you want.
So I appeal to you, my fellow shareholders: stop that boehner-headed viper John in his tracks, so the business can proceed as usual. Long live freedom, as I define it! Long live Oh bummer! Death to [fill in the blank]!