With less than four weeks until the election, not one candidate has unveiled a platform.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to be the first!
In recent weeks, you have heard much about my Party Party’s promise to provide free beer for all.
Though this important strategy remains the cornerstone of my agenda, please do not think that I’m a one-issue candidate. Far from it. My platform has many other planks as well. Three of them, to be exact.
Best of all, you’ll find that none of these planks is boring like the promises made by my opponents, who talk incessantly about infrastructure, economics, health care, financial services and other mind-numbing topics.
Ladies and gentlemen, under a Party Party government fuelled with free beer, such issues would take care of themselves!
Unlike my opponents, I don’t believe in micromanaging the public service and the private sector: I’m more concerned with creating an environment that fosters good decisions.
Hence my campaign motto: “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; give him free beer at work, and he’ll never leave the office.”
Benefits
Besides the most obvious benefit of free beer — people love it! — there are many secondary advantages.
Beer goggles, for instance. These happen after you’ve had three or four drinks and the world starts to look rosy. No matter what’s going on around you, you feel happy about it. You get giggly, and you have a grand time.
You can see how this could come in handy under a Party Party administration.
Say, for example, that your water bill doubles overnight next month because of the government’s previous agreement with Biwater.
You could get stressed out and develop high blood pressure — or your could put on your beer goggles and laugh at the absurdity of the situation!
Furthermore, when beer is drunk in large enough quantities, it can make you forget things. This is another skill that would be useful under my government.
Say, for example, that you’re an elderly citizen with nowhere to live. Instead of remembering daily that the senior home was due to be completed five years ago, drink a twelve pack.
Then you’ll quickly forget about the promises government has made for more than a decade.
And if you do happen to remember them, you’ll probably believe that the memory is a drink-related hallucination, and you won’t take it seriously.
Other planks
Because of such benefits, free beer will certainly take the territory to new heights. But I won’t stop there, ladies and gentlemen!
I am not so naïve as to believe that beer is a panacea for all of the territory’s woes. Some residents, in fact, don’t even drink it.
In most cases this is probably because they don’t understand the beverage.
This is why the second plank of my platform is beer appreciation courses. Under my administration, these lessons would be taught daily by experts with authentic names like Og Stewenbreur and Jalopsy Kittredgerson.
Government resources would be poured into (heh heh: get it?) teaching people to love the cold beverage.
Let me assure you that no one is better positioned to guide this effort than me: There was a time when I too did not like beer. I was a young man when I first sipped it.
“Yuck,” I said.
But it grew on me, and I’m proud to say that I’ve been drinking beer for years.
I now know the difference between lager and a lambic, between a stout and an ale. Ladies and gentlemen, I am equipped to fully appreciate a delicate micro-brew or a Coors Light!
Third prong
Still, my platform doesn’t end with beer appreciation courses, ladies and gentlemen!
It has come to my attention that some residents will not like beer no matter how many classes they take.
This may seem a little strange, but my administration is committed to inclusivity. Hence, the third plank of my platform: free wine and rum.
That’s right: For anyone who doesn’t like beer, there will be other options, which will be supplied daily to all workplaces in the territory.
But my government won’t stop there either.
Now that the desalination plant in Baughers Bay is no longer needed for water production, it will be used to make alcoholic beverages.
Ladies and gentlemen, from 8-9 p.m. each night, beer will literally flow from your taps! From 9-10 p.m., wine will follow, and from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., expect rum!
So vote the Party Party on June 8. Together, we’ll forget about our problems!
Disclaimer: Dateline: Paradise is a column and occasionally contains satirical “news” articles that are entirely fictional.
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