The Great Barbecue Aluminum Shortage
Aluminum Futures soared in trading the Friday before Memorial Day weekend as a barbecue aluminum shortage across the Midwest reached critical mass. It all started in January during a Green Bay Packers – Chicago Bears game at Soldier Field when faulty scanning equipment purchased by the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel accidentally rendered every hibachi, kettle and propane grill within three miles of Soldier Field incapable of maintaining structural integrity. Bears tailgaters blamed Packers tailgaters. Packers tailgaters blamed Bears tailgaters and paramedics on the scene had to treat 54 fans for what was thought to be excessive and involuntary bratwurst ingestion. Some of the fans in the aforementioned parking lot fight needed medical attention, too.
Since then, the rare aluminum-disintegrating bug unleashed by the faulty security scanning equipment has gone airborne and spread as far west as Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and as far east of Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, leaving a trail of crying football fans in its wake. Fibers of the virus carried back to Wisconsin on huntinggear Packers fans wore to the game not only eradicated all barbecue aluminum within the Green Bay and Milwaukee metropolitan areas but they also disintegrated four tree stands that Packers fans attempted to use the next deer season.
Barbecue manufacturers such as Weber-Stephen have tried to keep up with the sharp rise in demand, but long load-in, load-out times at aluminum warehouses, where workers are now required to report for duty in full beekeeper suits to keep the aluminum-eating virus out, have complicated the situation further.
“I feel like I’m goin’ into withdrawal here, Todd,” said local man Bill Swerski. “What’s a man wit’out ‘is grill? Half a man, dat’s what I say.”
by Jeff Yoders