Yesterday, one of those self-righteous spinsters from the Ladies’ Auxiliary came to protest my treatment of several orphans who were begging at my front gate. The miserable whelps would yowl songs in the hopes of receiving a ha’penny and a moldy hardtack biscuit or two. Naturally, I had my manservant Standish tell them to buzz off. When they responded with groans and other expressions of insolence, I ordered Standish to release the bear.
They were intruding on my property, were they not? That is what I told the nosy Ladies’ Auxiliary do-gooder. She replied that she had never heard of such a ghastly deed, and, consequently, she had no choice but to return my annual stipend unendorsed and uncashed. She laid my check on my nightstand, turned around, and left.
You may wonder why I suffer these ugly old hags. Well, Mrs. Zweibel was their long-time president and was quite attached to her duties. She thought that by holding charity bake-sales, auctions and bazaars, she was actually doing something to alleviate poverty and want in our community.
What her naive female mind could never comprehend was that it was I who was creating the poverty and want in our community. Who owned the village grist-mill, and who scandalously underpaid its workers? Who gave needy villagers loans with impossibly high interest-rates? When the Great Wind of 1909 blew away much of the village, who sold them wood scraps and tar-paper at exorbitant fees when they wished to re-build their crude huts?
It may seem ironic to you that for years I gave money to an organization that helped the very people I regularly exploited. Well, it helped me win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1923. And it kept the few members of the moneyed class in the county—most of whom belonged to the Auxiliary—firmly in check.
But now with Mrs. Zweibel having gone to her reward, I feel much less amenable to these old storks coming around and delivering their sermons to me. I think I will send my Swiss Guard down to the village for a good old sack-and-pillage. That will shut those biddies up but good.
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
