Old Grady not pacified

For the first time since 1975, Social Security benefits will not rise in 2010, causing a dramatic increase in the crankiness level of the nation's fifty million elderly recipients. "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take any more," quipped seventy-seven year old Eddie Benson. "I came up with that one this morning while I was with the gang down at the Krispy Kreme, and no one as much as cracked a smile. Senile old bastards, just sitting there feeling sorry for themselves, moaning about the cost of crullers. I tell em crullers didn't go up any last year, and so they start complaining about the cost of coffee. Then I say that coffee didn't go up any last year, and Old Grady flips me off and says it was too expensive last year. I say, how do you quantify that Grady, because they give you a bottomless cup, so the more you drink the cheaper it is, that's just simple mathematics. Old Grady flips me off again and says he never was good at math and besides, coffee keeps him up at night. And this is at eight-thirty in the morning, for gosh sakes." Republicans were quick to condemn the Obama administration for creating an inflationless economy where the nation's elderly can no longer wait with anticipation for their first check in January. Stung by the criticism, President Obama proposed a special one time payment of $250, the equivalent of a cruller every day, except Tuesdays, when crullers are free with the purchase of a Krispy Kreme Bottomless Cup O'Coffee. Republicans were quick to condemn Obama for catering to the massive elderly special interest group and adding thirteen billion more to the national debt. "This program is already paid for out of existing funds," said presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs, citing a huge stash of $250 gold pieces recently discovered in a Treasury Department warehouse. When the coins were first minted in 1988, they infuriated President Ronald Reagan, who ordered them locked away 'until hell freezes over or a black man becomes president, whichever comes first'. "The truth is that this elderly stimulus won't cost the government a thing, unless you count shipping and handling, and it will be a real shot in the arm for the country's struggling doughnut industry." "Big deal," said Old Grady, "what if I was tired of eating a cruller every morning? I'm not, but what if I was?"