bluebird of bitterness

From The Onion.

BEREA, KY—Calling the problem “damn near out of control,” local farmer Cliff Contreau confirmed that the 125-person wedding reception he chased out of his barn Saturday evening was the fifth such wedding party he’s had to scare off his property this month.

“They come in here almost every weekend stringing up incandescent light bulbs and taking photos next to my hay bales. This is private property, for Pete’s sake!” said Contreau, 63, who added that he now instinctively reaches for his rifle any time he hears a string quartet launch into the opening notes of Pachelbel’s Canon.

“At first, all I had to do was bang on the walls with my shovel and a whole mess of them in identical blue gowns and tuxedos would come running out, but I tried that last week and they just kept on chattering like I wasn’t even there. I’m almost all out of ideas at this point.”

Contreau later said that he plans to try ringing the barn with barbed wire, which he hoped would snag and slow the movement of anyone in billowy chiffon.

From The Onion.

VAIL, CO—Trekking well beyond the comfortable terrain of the first few pages of his Google search, local man Bruce Costas, 35, was reportedly forced to venture deep into the harsh wilds of the internet Wednesday to have his opinion confirmed by outside sources. 

Costas, who had fervidly espoused the opinion during a conversation earlier in the day, was said to have spent most of his evening slogging through a dense and oftentimes disorienting jungle of uncharted news sites, rarely visited blogs, and broken links in hopes of coming upon some hidden spring of affirmation, however small or isolated, that could corroborate his viewpoint. 

According to reports, the intrepid voyager only found what he had been seeking when he stumbled by chance onto a sparsely populated forum in the darkest, most desolate back country of the digital sphere, seven pages into the crumbling remains of an ancient message board thread. 

Sources confirmed that when he finally returned to the safe shelter of popular, mainstream websites, the conquering hero immediately trumpeted the triumphant news of his validated beliefs across every corner of his social networks.

From The Onion.

ITHACA, NY—In an ambitious attempt to revive a population long considered to be on the brink of extinction, scientists announced Friday they have slowly begun to reintroduce normal, well-adjusted human beings back into society.

According to officials at Cornell University, where for the past 18 years conservation researchers have operated an enclosed sanctuary for humans who are levelheaded and make it a habit to think before they speak, the endangered group is being cautiously reintegrated into select locations nationwide in hopes that they can reestablish permanent communities and one day thrive again.

“We’ve worked for years to stabilize our society’s dwindling population of sane, generally reasonable people, and within the safe confines of our refuge we’ve finally seen their numbers start to bounce back a little,” said Josh Adelson, head of the Cornell research team, which moved the remaining members of the group into a protected habitat in 1998 to keep them from dying off completely. “Now, we can very gradually begin to release this rare breed of rational humans back into the general public. With luck, they can survive and prosper.”

A member of the endangered subtype of human, who possesses the unusual abilities to calmly reflect on situations and view the world from others’ perspectives, is reintroduced into the population.

“Our hope is that within a century or so, the traits for making sound long-term decisions and being able to tolerate people different from oneself will propagate and begin to reemerge within the species at large,” he continued.

Prior to the conservation efforts, it is believed that even-tempered people with sound judgment and the ability to put the needs of others before themselves had dwindled to less than 150 within the country’s borders, and had gone completely extinct in the nation’s businesses and civic institutions. Experts widely agree that without isolation, protection, and captive-breeding programs, the remaining thoughtful, foresighted individuals would have been totally wiped out.

While admitting that the project’s reintroduction phase would be complex and its success far from assured, Adelson stressed that such measures were nevertheless absolutely necessary if responsible and emotionally mature humans able to see beyond the immediate gratification of their basest desires were ever to reestablish a foothold in society.

“Obviously, we have taken great precautions before releasing these individuals into an environment where demonstrations of good sense, open-mindedness, and basic human empathy are perceived as signs of weakness and quickly preyed upon,” said Adelson, who noted that to ease the transition during their first month acclimating to society, the endangered population would be kept away from television, the internet, advertisements, and all other forms of media. “For example, we’ve trained them for the inevitable encounters they will face with large groups of people incapable of separating emotions from arguments.”

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From The Onion.

NEW YORK—Grasping for any way to halt the Democratic candidate’s momentum, a coalition of wealthy donors reportedly pumped millions of dollars into Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign this week in a last-ditch effort to destroy his credibility.

“Unfortunately, our attempts to attack his message and brand him as a radical have had little effect on his poll numbers, so the only option left on the table was a massive, coordinated barrage of maximum-level contributions directly to his campaign,” said hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, who, along with hundreds of other high-net-worth investors and major financial corporations, has funded a new super PAC known as Corporate America For Bernie, which has already debuted a series of laudatory, pro-Sanders television and radio ads aimed at undermining the candidate.

“Our strategy is to hit Bernie with a few million in direct support in New Hampshire, and then unleash an all-out flood of money into his pocket in the run-up to Super Tuesday. We have the resources to keep funding him for as long as it takes to get him out of the race. I can assure you that we will not hesitate to give upwards of $5 million or even $10 million apiece to Bernie’s campaign if that’s what it takes to stop Bernie’s campaign.”

At press time, the newly cash-flush Sanders campaign was launching a series of attack ads targeting its own excessive wealth and influence.

From The Onion.

Saying it was simply time for drivers to move on, Toyota Motor Corp. issued a recall of its entire 1993 Camry model line Wednesday due to the fact that its owners really should have bought something new by now.

“We understand that the 1993 Camry was tremendously dependable, but, honestly, there’s just no excuse for driving a 22-year-old car at this point,” said Toyota spokesman Haruki Kinoshita, adding that, with all the advances in automotive technology that have taken place, no one really had any business driving a vehicle for more than two decades.

“We’re not saying you have to buy a new 2015 Camry or splurge on a flashy new hybrid, or even that your new car has to be a Toyota at all. But the bottom line is that you need to start fresh, however you choose to do so.”

While Toyota is reportedly confining its recall to the 1993 Camry, it also issued a warning to owners of 1994 to 1998 models alerting them to the fact that they were really starting to push it.

WARNING: CRUDE LANGUAGE

From The Onion.

ATLANTA—Kicking around ideas ranging from an uptick in child kidnappings to a new link between laptops and cancer, senior CNN staffers held their regular daily meeting this morning to decide which topic viewers should panic about for the rest of the day.

“It’s always kind of tough to get our meetings going each morning, but once we got some coffee in us, we were able to toss around a few ideas on what might absolutely terrify half a million or so viewers today,” said CNN Newsroom executive producer Eric Hall, adding that although the discourse was briefly derailed by a recounting of the previous night’s NFL game and discussions of staff members’ upcoming weekend plans, the team eventually spent 45 minutes debating which stories had the legs to prey on people’s anxieties for a full 24-hour cycle.

“There was a lot of back-and-forth between those who really wanted to focus on scaring the hell out of people with a piece about the nation’s lack of preparedness for the next big earthquake and those who felt like we should try to stir up a frenzy over a potentially dangerous new teen trend called vamping, in which kids stay up all night texting with friends and posting on social media. Sarah pitched the threats posed by pit bulls, but she’s been pushing that thing since the day she started—at least she brought in Munchkins for everybody, though.”

Sources confirmed that those objecting to going with a story about a horrific waterborne illness in Asia eventually acquiesced rather than let the meeting drag on into lunch.