Billy Deploys An Attitude Adjustment: Part 14: Fractional Reserve K-cups

Back at the convenience store Billy and Doogie high-fived. They had just witnessed history’s first interspecies turbo wedgie. It was amazing!

Bart spit out the stretched remains of a pair of Joe Boxer underwear and grinned. His experiment with human-based persuasion techniques had worked swimmingly. He was justly proud of his invention.

Achmed was nearly vibrating with fright. He looked all around; the store was entirely destroyed and Twitch was collapsed in a fetal position on top of a pile of Pringles. Billy sipped his coffee while Doogie capered about.

“That was better than the fourth of July.”

“With the best finale ever!” Billy agreed.

Back at NSA headquarters in [REDACTED] the analyst was contorted into a permanent face palm. From nowhere a voice oozed into his ears. “The tactical monkeys don’t get it?”

It was the cigarette smoking man (who is totally a hero in this story). He was behind the analyst, in a perfect position to garrote him. Sadly, the analyst was too upset to be awed by and compliment his sneaky ninja stealth entrance into the room. The smoking man shrugged and took a seat opposite the analyst.

“So, the squirrels are on to project FRN-K?”

“I think so. My currency manipulation detection routine is what found them. I don’t know how they discovered it.”

“Visual confirmation? This isn’t just another goldbug… or Ron Paul?”

“Well, the evidence fits. The squirrels are associated with that screeching harpy Dr. Rothschild. The doctor has a captive Pakistani graduate student working at the convenience store. Tonight, that store sold every k-cup in a 15 minute period. Then half an hour later he tried to sell more.”

“Tried to sell k-cups that don’t exist?”

“Yes. The original purchase looked legit but the second one can’t be.”

“Fractional reserve K-cups!?!”

“Apparently.”

The smoking man was livid. “First the hippie do-gooders devalue our emergency cache of Lucky Strikes…”

The analyst nodded. The smoking man continued.

“…then as if their healthy breathing crusade hadn’t done enough damage, they start their stinking hipster microbreweries so, our monopolistic control of cheap shitty beer is broken!”

The analyst shrugged. It had been a good plan but it didn’t hold.

“And the damned frackers devalued the National Petroleum Reserve.”

“Yep.” The analyst sighed.

“But after countless failed experiments, we are finally back on track…”

The analyst glanced at the monitor, drop zone in four,

“…it took 20 years to teach Americans they’re too stupid to make their own coffee.”

“Five dollar, skinny, half-caff, macchiatos.”

“And we’ve unitized it into premanufactured, controlled, tradeable denominations…”

“Replace grody old communal office coffee makers with sleek new Keurigs.”

“…just so we’ll have liquid assets when Congress finally flushes the dollar…”

“Kick the can down the road until there is no road.”

“…and these damn activist squirrels figure it out…”

“Clever little buggers.”

“…and they immediately try to turn a hard asset into fiat currency?”

“Can’t stop ‘em.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” The cigarette smoking man hissed. He reached forward and keyed the mic.

Back on the helicopter the consensus was they were totally hosed. What were their orders? Then an oily voice came across the headsets.

“Do you know why NORAD has almost 400 million portions of unitized coffee stored under carefully controlled conditions?”

Everyone froze. It was – HIM. Dear God!

Team leader alpha spoke… these might be his last words.

“No sir.”

“Well I do. And if you don’t want to wind up begging the Amish for turnip soup after things go tits up you’re going to go down there and KILL EVERYTHING.”

The team cheered. Finally, rules of engagement that made sense.