New York City, NY: Having been kicked out of various parks, bridges, and underpasses across New York City, the two-month-old Occupy Wall Street movement has decided to select a new location for their efforts: Macy’s Herald Square.
Three spokesbeings were selected to hold a press release: Hempy McHipster, an unemployed college graduate with a degree in Philosophy from upstate New York; Princess Vulvalia, a drag queen from the Bronx; and Mister Shower, a fire hydrant on 3rd St. The three released the following statement:
We, the persons, beings, and objects of Occupy Wall Street, are pleased to announce a new effort: Occupy Macy’s. Beginning on Thursday, we will be holding a parade to protest corporate greed and profiteering that takes place in America at the expense of its citizens. We have invited people from across this great nation to build floats, create marching bands, and bring balloons to draw attention to the plight of American workers.
The response thus far has been overwhelming. We have enough parade participants to stretch from Central Park to the very front door of corporate behemoth Macy’s. We anticipate having millions of people in attendance along the parade route, cheering us on. The parade will be simulcast across the world, being translated into dozens of languages. At long last, our message of anti-consumerism and anti-corporate-greedism will be shared around the globe.
Thus far, the Occupy Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as it is called, is expected to feature dozens of marching bands playing patriotic tunes, parade floats portraying idyllic scenes of an America free from corporate influence, and most impressively, giant balloons lampooning examples of the greed of giant multinationals. For example, there will be a balloon display featuring a bald-headed boy in a yellow shirt representing the citizenry, attempting to kick a football being held by a mean-spirited little girl, representing corporate executives. Also included will be a large, yellow anthropomorphic sponge who flips burgers for a monolithic sandwich franchise; his backside will be constructed at right angles, to represent society’s desire to conform to rigid standards of “right” and “wrong.”
Macy’s corporate officials are scrambling to figure out how to deal with this planned activity. “This is unprecedented,” said Bill Witherspoon, Chief Operating Officer for Macy’s. “We have no idea how to handle this many people and objects streaming past our front door. I mean, it’s Thanksgiving, for God’s sake; who would ignore spending time with their family at home to come out to downtown New York and waste half their day looking at a bunch of people and floats going past them? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
However, Macy’s has also issued a stern warning to its employees. In an internal memo obtained by Inept Owl reporters, Macy’s instructed its employees to take no part in the parade. “If employees are found engaging in even the most ridiculous of activities related to the parade–even holding the ropes that keep the balloons from flying away–they will be dealt with harshly. We have hired off-duty campus security staff from UC Davis to deal with uncooperative employees.”
In the meantime, Occupiers have planned a follow-up effort for the early hours of Friday morning. Beginning at midnight, they plan to rush all the entrances to Macy’s, tear apart the store, then clog the check-out lines for several hours buying items that are nominally on-sale, but could be easily obtained in later days or online. They are planning to refer to this event as “Black Friday,” which they say is in homage to a day when world stock markets, including Wall Street, crashed as a result of a massive sell-off. When asked about this stock market crash, traders on Wall Street had a uniformly blank look; one trader said, “Wait, that can happen?”