Fake News Stories

I wrote a few fake news stories. I probably will continue to whenever I have an “interesting” idea. I’ll post them every once in a while so this site doesn’t become a shitty version of The Onion. I guess that would be called The Tater Tot? Well, no. If it was called The Onion Ring then I could call it The Tater Tot. Luckily I don’t have to come up with a name because this is just some random feature I’m going to do.

“Man Excited Over American Tragedies”

For forty-five year old Flushing resident Howard Johnson, watching the first ten minutes of the nightly news is not bothersome. The gruesome details of death, carnage, and other tragedy do not get him down. In fact, Johnson looks forward to these events. Some nights, they work as his Viagra.

“I’ve been called just about every name in the book. It doesn’t make me a monster. It makes me a man looking for job security.”

Johnson has worked the last eleven years at his local library as man who raises and lowers the American flag in front. Previously, he had been the man who emptied the trash cans, but asked for the promotion to flag raiser when he married his wife Francine.

“I got laid all the time when I was emptying those trash cans,” said Johnson. “It was like working in the porn industry only I never had to take any acting classes. Everyone wants to sleep with the guy who does what no one else is willing to do. I no longer needed a job that is a heartthrob position now that I had Francine.”

At first Johnson felt like the rest of us whenever he had to lower the flag. The same sorrow we feel when we hear about a tragedy coursed through his veins. At some point, things changed. The economy completely fell apart and Johnson’s job was in jeopardy.

“You would think being named after a hotel chain would give me some clout somewhere. I’m also named after a New York Met. That was two things I had going for me. Still, nobody seemed to care whenever I added it to my resume looking for a new job.”

Eventually Johnson came to embrace his job. In fact, he hoped for tragedy in the news.

“I would catch him praying at night,” said wife Francine. “He would ask God to do some dirty work. Never anything too sinister. He wanted an ex-president or one of them Negro basketball players to die of a drug overdose.”

Smaller local tragedies such as the death of beloved homeless woman Eileen Barkan in 2004 brought Johnson to tears. He considered leaving the job to work elsewhere.

“I couldn’t leave Flushing,” said Johnson. “The name reminds me too much of a toilet and at the end of the day, knowing I live in a place with a ridiculous name always give me a good laugh no matter how bad my day was.”

In recent years, when access to guns has been as easy as ever and maniacs are plentiful, Johnson has come to appreciate his job more than ever. Worried that his job is limited to only working the days when someone is unjustifiably killed by man or a higher power, Johnson devised a plan to up his hours at work.

Johnson is the co-creator of the ‘Get Guns Back in Our Schools’ program. In his spare time he travels to local schools preaching about how guns are the best way to solve problems. Schools were reluctant at first to let him speak, until they realized that one gunshot solves problems quicker, and much in a more silent manner.

“I don’t necessarily believe everything I preach. I have a family to feed though. Me, my wife Francine, and our nineteen cats must eat in order to survive. The way I see it, it’s us or them. The more of them that die, the more expensive cat food I can buy. Pretty cool how I made it rhyme there huh?”

The Get Guns Back in Our Schools initiative has been met with negativity. Principal Joseph H. Schlavin III of Richard Head Middle School described it as a “dickless-move by a prick-face cocksucker.”

“I don’t care what people think about me,” said Johnson. “I’m named after a New York Met, remember? I don’t even respect myself.”

In the coming months, Johnson plans to expand his love of death to others. Along with his wife Francine, they plan to get into the ribbon making industry. They have already patented turquoise ribbons to represent supporting teenagers who have fallen victim to sexually transmitted diseases. Clearly, Johnson is not just in the game of death. He will capitalize on any bad news that he can.

“People will support anything these days. I would be a fool to think they would not give me $5.99 for a poorly made ribbon where only a couple of pennies even go to helping a high school cheerleader get her gonorrhea medicine.”

Until the project gets off the ground, Johnson will hope for daily deaths to you and everyone you love to keep allowing him to raise that library flag.

“I never set out to be the bad guy. It’s just the way things turned out. I will see you all in hell.”