Eight hundred thousand workers furloughed, nutrition programs for women and children threatened, and our national panda cam blacked out. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you'd have to have a heart of stone to read about our government shutdown without wanting a little comic relief.
And we've got that for you, right here, thanks first to NPR's Two-Way news blog and its 8 Great 'Shutdown Pickup Lines':
— "You're all the stimulus I need."
— "I'm on furlough from the TSA. Want me to wand you?"
— "Do you work for the government? Because you shut. it. down."
— "Where have you been sequestered all my life?"
— "Do you not carry health insurance? Because you've got 'fine' written all over you."
— "My resolution continues ALL NIGHT."
— "The IRS is suspending all audit activities. But I'll still check you out."
— "The only thing nonessential about you are those pants."
And the best of the rest, starting with NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me":
Yes, but what effect will the government shutdown have on old episodes of The West Wing?
— waitwait (@waitwait) October 1, 2013
We also discover that NASA's pioneering Voyager 2, hurtling along near the edge of the solar system, has a little bit of an attitude about events back home:
Due to government shutdown, we will not be posting or responding from this account. Farewell, humans. Sort it out yourselves.
— NASAVoyager2 (@NASAVoyager2) October 1, 2013
Next: Stephen Colbert, who has kept us sane through many a political melodrama: