Wilderness-Wally Special Report
Investigators today announced they had discovered the basic cause behind the rising national debt figures.
Teams from the FBI, CIA, US fish and Wildlife Service (Endangered Newt and Horse Fly Program) and other clandestine groups have been investigating this situation (at great expense) for the last two years.

A major breakthrough in the case came when a thirty-year-old secretary in the Department of Education, Office of Free Post Graduate Education to Illegal Aliens, admitted to a long history of ordering personal training equipment from ads on TV.

When first questioned by investigators, the woman, lying on a water board, refused to cooperate, insisting she knew nothing about the $739,000 in charges that had been added to the government credit card entrusted to her. She insisted she had used it only for replenishing supplies in the office coffee fund. Agents became slightly suspicious when they found there were only two people assigned to the office.

After seven minutes of intense questioning, the woman finally broke when an agent from the Department of Protection and Preservation of Pre-1937 Bicycle Wheels and Sprockets threatened to impound the scooter the woman used while shopping at Wal-Mart.

Sobbing uncontrollably, the woman provided investigators with the location of the 50,000 square foot warehouse where the equipment was stored. Later, paramedics were called in to remove splinters and treat puncture wounds the woman suffered when the water board broke under her weight and she fell three feet to the floor. Subsequently, the building in which she was being held had to be abandoned due to structural failure.

When a SWAT team from the Federal Department on Aging, very slowly entered the building at its secret location, 1602 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC, they found it stacked to the ceiling with every type of personal training equipment ever advertised on TV. There were slimming gyms and flexing machines of every description. Several members of the team were injured when one of them removed the bottom ball in a seventy-foot high stack of exercise balls. While being treated by paramedics, the elderly agent said, "The ball came with an exercise chart that gives you some examples. It is a vast improvement over my previous exercise ball!"

Papers found in the warehouse led investigators to a vast conspiracy of federal employees that had been using their agency's credit cards to purchase extensive amounts of products and services from ads on TV. One man in California had purchased four hundred and fifteen auto insurance policies even though he did not own a car. He said, "I just couldn't resist buying the product after watching their ads on TV."

Although most advertisers were out of business two and half minutes after receiving orders, some of them were located still writing credit card numbers down while standing at the pay-phone they had claimed as their office. Where possible, (actually in two cases) refunds were authorized when a team of Seals from the US Naval installation at Coronado, California was sent to negotiate with the advertiser.

The conspirators involved have been given three weeks off, with pay, to think about honesty and responsibility when dealing with public monies.

A representative of the advertiser's organization "Sincere Honesty In Television" said his group was renewing its efforts to replace the lost sales it suffered as a result of this investigation. He said, "No channel and no time-slot is safe from our constant bombardment of advertisements for worthless crap at high prices." He added, "For the information we provide, all we want is your credit card number."

Although the government managed to get rid of much of the material not consumed or thrown away by the conspirators by paying people to include the items in their garage sales, the national debt increase has been attributed to Shipping and Handling costs… which are never refundable.
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