Page 44 - Just Deserts

Excessories

Excessories affair has washed several large donations up onto our
shores. Evidently many of these same people who had been callously
and unthinkingly supporting the extermination of innocent elephants
found religion when the satisfaction of their desires reached the
extreme of human grave-robbing. It was estimated in the press that
the women who bought the fake regalia in the back room of
Excessories spent more than forty thousand dollars for the transient
thrill of owning a piece of African exotica. Keeping that in mind, I
will now yield the floor to our treasurer, Betty Belgirth.”
He sat down to another round of enthusiastic applause while the
treasurer picked up her papers and walked to the front of the
assembly. Ms. Belgirth first held up a newspaper she had folded to
one of the back pages of the news section.
“Before I give you the financial report, I’d like to read something
to you from yesterday’s Examiner. I think it may be of interest to us.”
Scattergood stirred nervously in his chair; he hadn’t been told
about this. Others in the group were evidently already in the know,
because a babble of excited whispers had to be quelled before the
treasurer could continue.
“Now this is in a small box next to an advertisement for a heavy
metal concert, so it is unlikely that very many of our born-again
supporters saw it. It says, ‘The Examiner apologizes for an error
occurring in a story appearing in these pages on March 19. The
source of the teeth mentioned in the first paragraph was not, as
printed, a mass grave in Bechuanaland, but a misplaced shipment of
refuse from a dental college in this city.’”
Ms. Belgirth waited for the outburst of outrage and merriment to
subside. She looked to Andrew Scattergood for assistance in
restoring order, but he was too flabbergasted to act. Finally, she
resumed her remarks.
“Yes, my fellow elephant-lovers: it does appear that a completely
American scam to defraud purchasers of poached ivory
unintentionally discredited the African poachers, as well. As Mr.
Scattergood pointed out, our cause has benefited from both sides of
this affair. As your treasurer, I can only guess that the windfall of
contributions would have abated, even without this latest revelation.
But we have done very well, indeed. I cannot list all the donors by
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