3-cent Stamp business under grave threat, says stamp magnate

Bloomington, Illinois, 22 July 2002: Bloomington-based 3-cent stamp tycoon and sole owner of the Lick Stick and Thump Company of Illinois, Lictor Thumpus, today voiced his grave concern at the state of the 3-cent stamp businesses in the county. In a crowded press conference attended by most of the postmen in the county, Lictor Thumpus said that the business of selling 3-cent stamps was indeed the most stamped upon business in the entire country. When the government first announced its decision to replace its 34-cent stamp with the 37-cent stamp, it gave high-profile entrepreneurs like Lictor Thumpus no indication that it would carry out the switch so soon. Far-sighted and astute magnates like he had purchased millions of 3-cent stamps, intending to provide a valuable service to the community while at the same time earning a meager and hard earned profit for themselves. The government, with its hitherto unknown efficiency, had issued 37-cent stamps too soon, effectively stamping out such noble intentions. Businessmen will no longer want to stamp their imprint in the community, Lictor Thumpus said. This is America and here the government had no right to interfere in legitimate business, Thumpus said, to thunderous applause from the crowd. This was discrimination, he declared, the government had no reason to single out his business to show its efficiency when it had reduced the rest of the country to stamples, he quipped, meaning shambles.

He also made more than a passing reference to another budding magnate, Glueon Paster, in the neighborhood who had purchased a few million stamps and was stamping up to compete with him. This was unfair competition, said Thumpus, in obvious anger. I’m a stickler for originality and I always stick to my own stamps. Buying 3-cent stamps was my idea and therefore my intellectual property, he said, obviously outraged. Nobody had the right to steal his ideas and get into his business, he said. This business required great mental capability and if competitors with highly suspect brainpower got into the business, he was apprehensive about the effect it would have on the Bloomington sticonomy. Asked whether he felt threatened by the new competition, Thumpus stamped his feet in disdain. We have been in this business for generations, he said, with apparent contempt for the competition. Both my pa and stampa were in this before me, he said, underlining his bonding with this community. We have extensive experience in this industry and offer auxiliary services like licking and thumping. Licking is a risky profession and our experts have spent a lot of years developing immunity to cockroach and other eggs. This kind of service cannot be provided by the competition, he stated. I need not remind you that I made my fortune in the 1-cent stamp business, he said. At that time, he recalled, the government had taken a long time to carry out the switch. Unfortunately, since then the quality of governance had fast degenerated and now the whole 3-cent stamp industry was in danger of extinction. He called upon the government to recall all 37-cent stamps forthwith and hold the issuance back till the industry recovered. If Ford and Firestone can do it, why not the government, he asked. He was ‘tired’ of the government, he said, with his well-known penchant for punning. We have to stamp down hard on this kind of government interference, he asserted. Thumpus received several stamping ovations during the course of his outstamping speech.

He would shortly organize a country-wide protest which the government will not be able to stamp out. The whole country is stamping behind me on this, he said. As for the competition, he said, he was hereby offering a merger option, failing which he stood ready to launch a hostile takeover bid. He could easily buy out all the competition's stamps. He even had a few food stamps which his rivals could use, once he had affixed them, he said derisively. I am taking the fight into the opposition’s stamp, he said, announcing a 5% discount beginning immediately.

The competitor’s office could not be contacted for comment. The attendance at a press conference called by the competitor a few days ago was so sparse that it turned out to be a stamp squib. That fact seems to have stampened their enthusiasm a bit and their plans were coming unglued, according to well-informed sources.

At the time of going to press, however, the stamp markets around the county were agog with rumors. No one seems to want a showdown between these two mercurial moguls but everybody would enjoy a stamp-down all the same.

- A fictitious news item by Viswam Sundar