DOZ KNARGRT. In this provincial capital of Freedonia, politics is viewed as both a source of amusement and a blood sport. “We love when the sole political party clashes with itself,” says Grabholz Mnyierk, a licensed asbestos remover. “It means goodies are passed out to those who do not have cushy government jobs, such as measurer of celery stalks and commissioner of notary publics.”
Freedonian shop girls dressed up for a “night on the town.”
This close familiarity with the gritty, sausage-grinding aspects of government has bred an indifference to international geopolitics, as most citizens take a “pox on both your houses” attitude towards chest-thumping between the superpowers. “I couldn’t give a rat’s patootie about the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China,” Mnyierk says. “My life will not change and my wife will not grow any smaller whoever is in charge.”
But that tradition of blase indifference has finally met an exception that proves the rule. With the Soviet invasion resulting in over $1 billion in aid to Ukraine thus far, sentiment is growing here to submit a proposal to Russia offering Freedonia as a replacement target. “Why invade Ukraine, their folk dances are inferior,” says Freedonian Minister of Popular Culture Inovakna Blushcwortz. “Come to Freedonia, where your lustful dreams of conquest will be satisfied by humble shop girls who have only been ravaged by male relatives.”
Freedonian “Duma,” world’s only tri-cameral legislature.
While social services and consumer goods in Russia are abysmal, in Freedonia they are worse, a source of continuing dissatisfaction and the cause of the movement to invite Russia to invade. “In Leningrade you wait hours in line to buy basic necessities such as butter,” says Mnyierk, a would-be standup comic on weekends. “In Freedonia, basic necessities wait hours in lines on your butter.”
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the proposal, saying such volunteerism is an admirable characteristic of the Freedonian people. “When I visited Freedonia by mistake several years ago, I was graciously offered the chance to sleep in a cattle barn with an innocent milkmaid,” he recalled wistfully. “I had to decline due to United Nations policy which prohibits officials from accepting sexual favors from peasants without substantial monetary compensation.”
Rally to protest invasion of Ukraine
Pro-invasion forces have prepared a detailed submission that is wending its way to Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, by carrier pigeon. “It is ‘best-in-class,’” says Minister of Import-Export Norz Ufpaniak. “Other countries use three-ring binders, ours have four rings!”
Freedonian women dance to “Pull the Ox From the Ditch.”
Freedonia was formed after World War II from parking lots seized by Nazis in several Eastern European countries, and has expanded since then by accretion along the shorelines of Lake Vugork. “What we want, we take,” says Chancellor of the Exterior Kalie Frobholz, the first woman to hold a cabinet-level position in the land-locked nation. “I would like to acquire more parking lots from closed shopping malls in America, but I am told that the storm-water runoff permits are not transferable.”
“Do you want to invade your place or mine?”
So the world holds its breath, waiting to see whether the Freedonian gesture of friendship will help avert escalation of the conflict into World War III. “For me, it would be a blessing,” since Juszp Aelkjs, a condiment manufacturer. “With all the sausage stands that will be set up to watch the fighting, vendors will need much mustard and relish.”
In all seriousness, this might make a good parody novel. Kind of like ‘The Mouse That Roared”.