Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Garbage Cans

One Act Play: Garbage Cans

Scene 1: Two trashcans in an alley in New York City. The lid to the first tilts up and Cookie Monster rears his head. He begins to sing.

He’s got a ticket to ride,
He’s got a ticket to ride,
He’s got a ticket to ride and he don’t care.

Someone approaches and the lid closes. It’s Mr. Jones, Head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Mr. Jones: This can’t be the place but the instructions were very clear.

Other Trash can opens and the President stands up brushing off his suit.

Mr. President, is that you?

Who the hell do you think it is…You’re late….

It wasn’t my fault the ferry pilot took three tries to get into the slip….

There you go blaming others.... I hate that.

Sorry Mr. President… It won’t happen again.

The reason I called you here Mr. Jones is because I am concerned about this Quarter's Consumer Price Index…

I was afraid you were going to say that.

We’ve had some tough economic times and those Republicans are acting like its all my fault. All I need now are some bad numbers on inflation.

Fancy you should ask Mr. President, because I just previewed the numbers and they show around six percent.

Geeeze! What is driving the index so high?

Well the big driver is fuel costs this summer…they really went out off the chart…Up about forty percent.

I was afraid of that, what else?

Well food is up six percent as well.

Hmmmm

What kind of index were you expecting?

I was hoping for half a percent.

You know what Mr. President?

What?

If we ignore the criteria of energy and food we come up with a fifth of a percent.

Why didn’t you say so to begin with…. Those abnormal spikes skew the data every time. Driving cars and eating food.... can you believe that?

I was thinking the same thing Mr. President.

You’re doing a good job over in the BLS, Jones…

Thank you sir…