Broken News: Nation slowly realizing that financial crisis not some intricate April Fool’s joke

CHICAGO—Over a week after the fact, local man Joe Erskine has seen his mood slowly turn from one of imminent surprise and excitement to one of overarching doom and depression. Mr. Erskine, like many other of his fellow citizens in the Chicagoland area, had been expecting to learn that what some economists had called “the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression” had in fact just been an elaborate buildup to the world’s greatest April Fool’s Day prank ever.

"Call me a pessimist, but I'm starting to doubt that someone is going to jump out from behind a bush and yell ‘Gotcha!’ anytime soon,” observed Mr. Erskine, a drywall contractor from Calumet. “These last few months, I've been marveling at the lengthy buildup and layering of tricks. How they were all so deep into the prank that they had even begun tampering with my contracting business to make it seem like work was drying up, how friends would pretend to lose their jobs, and the extra lengths my wife went to playacting the increasing strain the ‘crisis’ was putting on our marriage. I hesitate to say this, but, this thing might just be real.”

Among the chief concerns of those who remain convinced this is a prank are the staggering logistical requirements of collusion between every media outlet, economist, and political leader in the country, the financial cost of hiring experienced document forgers and website hackers to make it appear as if bank balances and investments were evaporating, and the fact that the joke seems to get less and less funny as we creep further into April.

“This is comedy 101 people,” explained comedian Harry Gellar, currently doing a weekly set at Chuckles in Joliet. “Anticipation and delay, tension and release. All comedy is based on timing. But if you wait a week to spring the punchline, people just might not think the joke is all that funny anymore."

Asked if he, too, thought that the crippling recession is just an elaborate hoax, Gellar shrugged. "If it is, I'm not in on it. All I can say is, Joe Cassano better be jumping out of a goddamn layer cake dressed like a clown, holding a ‘Fooled You!’ balloon toot-sweet. Frankly, I’m worried. I’m beginning to think that getting that adjustable rate mortgage on a house I couldn’t really afford wasn’t the smartest thing."

Still, many are increasingly unwilling to chalk the country's pending financial collapse up to a mean-spirited prank, choosing instead to focus on the lost opportunities and signs they should have seen.

“You know, I was starting to get wise this might not be a hoax when I saw the justice department spend so much time on Madoff,” observed investor Brian Cohen, who hasn’t yet realized he lost millions in the Ponzi scheme. “I just remember thinking ‘This seems pretty serious for a prank. Surely they aren’t wasting this much time and effort on a joke.' Maybe I really did lose all that money..."

“Shit,” he sighed. “Now I really regret not gouging that bastard’s eyes out at the Temple Beth El Passover Seder we went to with him last year. “

Erskine's mood seemed to darken even further when told of those who believe the financial crisis is actually real. After throwing a stool through his kitchen window, Erskine calmly sat down at the table to managed a smile. “Why should I be concerned that this all isn’t actually a big joke at my expense?” he asked.

“This is all just a dream anyway,” he said, blood beginning to seep from fresh purple welts as he furiously pinched at his skin. “This is all just a very bad dream...”