Top Ten Ways the U.S. Government Shutdown was Averted

Locked Matt Gaetz in the basement with the gorilla from "Trading Places"
Taylor Swift posted a message encouraging a bipartisan agreement; members of Congress immediately forgot about their differences and embraced in a group hug as Travis Kelce celebrated
Kevin McCarthy traded the short-term funding bill for eight first-round draft picks in 2024 to 2031
Matt Gaetz dressed up as a court jester, attempted to juggle on the House floor
Marjorie Taylor Greene agreed to vote for the legislashun if the bill stipple-ated that her hair is strawberry blonde
Fate of country was to be decided by a poker game, but that approach fell through when the deck of cards was found to consist solely of jokers with Matt Gaetz's creepy picture
At first Joe Biden didn't want to get out of bed to sign the bill before midnight ("Come on, man!"), but then his staff offered him Graeter's chocolate chip ice cream, and he grudgingly agreed
Lauren Boebert was unable to vote against the legislation because she was making out with a Democrat in the cloak room
Democrats agreed to vote for the legislation in return for an unlimited supply of seasonal Krispy Kreme pumpkin spice donuts—mmmmmm
Matt Gaetz stood up to make a floor speech, but then Will Smith walked up and smacked him

Posted October 1, 2023

Commentary

We thought a U.S. government shutdown was a foregone conclusion, so we were surprised when Kevin McCarthy put together a last-minute deal just before the clock ran out on the month of September 2023.

The timing was favorable from our perspective, as we've been light for new funny top ten list material for over a week now. In this funny top ten list we've hit the Matt Gaetz theme pretty hard, with several items themed around him (items 10, 7, 5, and 1). Normally it can be hard to identify knaves by looks alone, but he's a notable exception. He oozes creepy from his pores.

We keep imagining a fake situation where Gaetz appears at our front door and announces, "I'm here to pick up Amber for our date." Filled with terror, we immediately respond, "No you're not!" and push him off the porch.

This image of "joker card" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.