Americans Losing Sense of Humor in Wake of Debt Ceiling Talks

Satirists are having one of the worst seasons this year trying to get Americans to laugh about their situations. With home foreclosures still at an all-time high, no real health care reform in sight, and now a deadlocked government where each side wants to see the other fail regardless of how it impacts the little guy, Americans just aren't in the mood to laugh.

“I wrote a story the other day about John Boehner’s golf scores suffering from lack of practice, and it got less than a hundred hits. With the keywords ‘Boehner’ and ‘golf’ alone, I usually get close to 300 hits. If I get the word ‘tan’ in there, which I did, I should easily have gotten over a thousand hits. My numbers are definitely in the toilet,” said Hubert McCain (no relation to John McCain, although we can’t be certain) who declined to disclose his hometown.

Speaking of toilets, even writers on toilet humor sites are seeing a drop in readership. What used to be the number one draw in sophomoric humor, farting stories are simply not getting any attention these days. Writers who bet the farm on websites centered around farting are losing big time. They are facing their own debt crises. “We’re in deep doo doo,” said one writer who even fell flat trying to joke about the fact that no one finds his poop stories humorous anymore.

“Historically,” said Happy Kline, “whenever there was a downturn in the economy, humor was about the only thing America had going for it and comedians and jokesters made a pretty good earning making sure things didn’t get too serious. But with this latest budget crisis on top of the housing crisis, terrorist thingie, and all those damned tsunamis and earthquakes, we are just not able to put on our clown faces and make anyone laugh anymore.”

McCain agreed. “I just don’t get it. We have some of the nuttiest political candidates we’ve ever had in our lives running for President in 2012 and not one person can find the humor in that. It’s said,” he said, “a real waste of material.”