Freedonians Cry Foul as ATMs Give Other Olympians More Money

BEIJING.  The opening ceremony of the XXIVth Winter Olympics had just wound down here tonight when Szlxki “Red” Nvorkgz, a member of the Freedonian Scotch-Mixed Doubles Curling Team, bolted for an ATM kiosk of the Bank of China to get some cash for a night of revelry in the Tian’anmen Square with new friends he’d made from the French and Brazilian squads.  “This will be fun,” he said as he waited in line behind them.  “It is my first trip outside Freedonia, I am eager to see if Chinese sheep are as beautiful as ours back home.”


Freedonian team’s oversized communal bath towel.

But when it came time for Nvorkgz to make a withdrawal, he found that the zlotnys he had deposited at the bank earlier in the day to pay for incidental expenses during his stay here yielded him only one Yuan, the currency of the People’s Republic of China.

“This is so unfair,” he said, as the others in his party folded their currency into their wallets and waved good-bye, leaving him alone and forlorn.  “Why does ATM give them more money than me?”


Colorful native costumes of Freedonia.

His experience was shared by other members of the Freedonian team, leading to a formal protest with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that they were being discriminated against by the ubiquitous cash-dispensing equipment.  “We will definitely look into this,” said Pierre de Borchgrave, a Belgian member of the IOC.  “We are unfortunately a volunteer organization, and our resources are stretched thin taking care of athletes from nations that can afford to bribe us with cash and buxom women.”

Freedonia’s currency is thinly traded on world markets because the country is not a member of the European Economic Community, and its money is backed only by the nation’s reserve of weasels, which are historically worth less than precious metals.  “A lot of people never got back into zlotnys once they got burned in the eighties,” says Michael Flores of Forex Trading Partners.  “I’m referring to the 1880s, not the 1980s.”

After a call to the emergency hotline in the bank’s vestibule, Nvorkgz is able to obtain a temporary line of credit by posting collateral in the form of his cousin Togzhan, who lives on a state farm in the Vrlzikd province, but who was able to accompany him to China because the cardamom plants are not yet in bloom.  “You will like her, of this I am sure,” he explains to Assistant Vice President Kim Seo-joon.  “MUCH better than sheep.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Hail, Freedonia!”

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