TOP DRAWER SATIRE

 

Inconvenience Matters
by
HL Carpenter

 

Even as local, state and federal governments struggle to close budget gaps by curtailing nonessential activities such as education, driver’s licenses and health clinics, one service continues to escape the chopping block: Inconvenience.

“Taxpayers will never have to worry about cutbacks in this area,” says Causen Trubble, a government spokesperson. “We view inconvenience as one of our core responsibilities.”

Government has historically been the world’s largest provider of inconvenience and output has been surprisingly resilient. During the fiscal crisis of the past year, statistics show governmental offerings of inconvenience have tripled.

Experts expect the trend to continue, with the amount of inconvenience available to the public growing almost as rapidly as the number of new taxes required to pay for it all. The outlook is bolstered by a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Office of Incommodiousness, which estimates the total bill for governmental inconvenience will exceed $100 quadzillion this year.

While that number includes difficult-to-track noncash costs such as an increase in the general crankiness of taxpayers and lost productivity due to longer lines, analysts believe it is as accurate as anything else the government estimates the costs of.

Still, not everyone is happy about the increase in inconvenience. In an effort to ease the strain on governmental resources, some officials have proposed outsourcing inconvenience to private companies.

Mr. Trubble is adamant that will never happen, saying, “Inconvenience is far too important to leave to amateurs.”

 

Originally published September 2009.