Girl Refuses to Cry For Cameras

BABSON, LA – Elizabeth Jameson, 16, is being pilloried by her hometown for refusing to cry when TV crews from nearby Baton Rouge tried to gauge her response to a mass killing at her high school. On the previous day, a fellow student, Nick Farley, had opened fire on seven vending machines in the cafeteria, ending the mechanical life of six and paralyzing the bill-insertion feature of a seventh. Authorities are hopeful that the generic candy and snack kiosk will survive the massacre, as the vending MDs are working hard around the clock to repair the damage.

Said Sheriff Danny Joe Abernathy: “The town of Babson is hopeful that before long the snack machine will be taking not just one-dollar bills, but fives and tens as well. However, our thoughts and prayers go out to the other six, less fortunate machines and their owners.”

In interviews, students spoke with love of the vending apparatus that never seemed to run out of small plastic bags of Cheez-Its and M&Ms. Adolescent girls sobbed a river of tears, which became a veritable tsunami the moment they saw the red light become active on the TV cameras – because they cared so much and were good people. The boys hung their heads low while searching for a bawling female, preferably a hot one, to pull to their chest in commiseration.

Homecoming Queen, Kristin Ward, demonstrated her goodness like a true leader by crying during a school newspaper interview, with the cameras recording only her heaving back. She attracted a line of athletic, albeit sensitive boys waiting to console the ravishing town beauty. Meanwhile, 210-pound Mary Stuart, a giant hairy mole above her lip, had to be satisfied with crying in the arms of 87-pound Seymour Hirsch, the treasurer of the Chess Club.

The real tragedy occurred when the TV crews were filming Kristin Ward and other mascara-stained girls lighting candles and placing teddy bears at the site of the shooting. In the background was Elizabeth Jameson devoid of tears, her eye make-up as pristine as a cover girl on a routine assignment in Siberia. To make matters worse, she was talking into a cell phone and laughing up a storm.

Elizabeth later explained that she was laughing in response to a joke being told to her about the priest, the rabbi and the hydrophobic mermaid – that she meant no disrespect to the slain vending machines – only indifference.  The explanation did nothing to dissipate the anger of the citizens of Babson once they saw the footage on TV.

“I would’ve never thought Elizabeth capable of such monstrous behavior,” said an outraged Mrs. Connor, president of the PTO and bagger at the Winn Dixie. “And to think she used to babysit my kids. I shudder at what could have happened to my babies.”

Margaret Smith, famous around town as the clerk at the local DMV who will keep you waiting for eternity while she files her nails, agreed with Mrs. Connor. “I always knew there was something wrong with that Elizabeth Jameson, what with her always carrying around some book, and not the Bible, mind you.  That girl always thought she was smarter than everyone else, smarter than even that lovely girl, Kristin Ward. Now that girl cried good and proper. No wonder she was voted Home Coming Queen, while little Miss Jameson sat in a Krispy Kreme reading Tom Robbins.”

Soon the story became a national sensation.

Ann Coulter went on Larry King to issue the ultimate insult – that Ms. Jameson was no better than noted Antichrist, Hillary Clinton. Coulter then admitted that she, too, did not sob at the news of the school shooting, but only because of a genetic defect that renders her tear ducts inoperative and gives her all the empathetic range of a Gestapo officer moonlighting as a serial killer.

“In other words,” commented Larry King, “you are a sociopath.”

King is now in the hospital recovering from a stiletto heel to the face and his suspenders being wrapped around his throat.

The next day, all the citizens of Babson converged on the home of Ms. Jameson. Margaret Smith, with her ostentatious one-inch finger nails, led the contingent of reputed busybodies. Sheriff Abernathy issued flaming torches -- that had been confiscated from the Tiki Lounge -- to all the men folk, most of whom also brought beer and flasks of whiskey. And town-crier, Kristin Ward, commanded a legion of young girls, most of them pretty, who made sure to wear hip-hugging pants and tight high-hemmed shirts. The boys, especially the nerdy ones, made sure to insinuate themselves within this gaggle of belly-button pierced flat tummies. Super nerd, Seymour Hirsch, managed to position his head a heroic two feet from Kristin Ward’s right breast – and never took his eyes off the magical flesh orb.

 Even Nick Farley, the gunman, or kid, who had set off this entire sequence with his massacre of the seven vending machines, was present at the mob scene. (For the record, he was pissed that a Mrs. Field chocolate chip cookie had gotten stuck at the top, and, to heighten his homicidal rage, Marilyn Manson was playing on his iPod).

In the end, Elizabeth Jameson was betrayed by her church-going parents. “Take this demon-child,” said her mother, “and do as you please.”

A lynch mob usually lynches the object of their hatred, hence the name, but, in this case, decided against a public hanging out of respect for Mr. Jameson and his legendary fussiness over his well groomed trees. Instead a drunken man came up with the idea – inspired by his favorite movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome – of total banishment. The mob tied Elizabeth Jameson’s hands behind her back, mounted her on a donkey, put a giant Big Boy head around her own head and pointed her in the direction of Beaumont, Texas.

“That will teach her not to cry on TV,” moralized Margaret Smith, as she held up her gaudy finger nails to the camera filming the event.