Discount Meat Giveaway Seemed Fishy To Police, Multiple Arrests Made

NEWARK, New Jersey –

When Felicia Sommers heard about the big discount meat giveaway taking place beside the community garden she tends, she wasted no time in calling all of her friends. “Have you seen the price of meat these days? It’s outrageous!” said the 32-year old mother of four. “I called as many people as I could to get over here, and get over here quick.”

One of the people Sommers called was the wife of Newark police detective Alan Hynes. “I knew something was up when my wife told me about it,” said Det. Hynes. “I changed into plain clothes and took a walk over.”

Sure enough, a few shady characters operating out of the back of a truck and dealing in cash-only transactions were running the show. “Labels were torn off the plastic so you couldn’t find out where the meat came from, but we knew it was stolen from somewhere,” said Hynes. “There were also a number of lookouts pacing up and down, these guys were real amateurs.”

“The meat looked very lean,” said Sommers, “leaner than any meat I have ever seen before. I was about to ask the guys a question when all hell broke loose and we found out the truth.”

“It’s horsemeat!” cried one astute discount meat shopper! “I know horses, my dad’s a butcher and my mom’s a vet, and this shit is horse meat!”

Panic ensued. Customers screamed. Many retched out in the open air. The purveyors of purloined pony plasm quickly grabbed their packages and threw them back in the truck, snatching some of the equine flesh from the hands of many disappointed consumers.

“I didn’t care if it came from a horse or whatever,” said single mother Winnie Foster. “I have mouths to feed. We eat pigs and sheep and birds and cows, don’t we? What’s the big deal about eating a damn horse? It’s not like it’s monkey meat or anything gross like that! Now I gotta go home and make some more damn spaghetti, and I promised my family they were going to have meat tonight. My kids are sick of spaghetti – and so am I!”

The perpetrators were arrested and charged with selling stolen property, but were not charged with selling horse meat. “It’s technically not illegal to sell horse meat in the United States. The government cleared it years ago – it’s just kind of frowned upon,” said Hynes. “So we couldn’t get them on that, though I’d have liked to. I’ve done mounted police duty before, and so the thought of eating one, well it kind of makes me sick to my stomach to tell you the truth.”

“I guess I’ve learned my lesson,” said Sommers. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

TROY, New York –

“Where’s the Beef?!” was a popular phrase in the 80s, based on the 1984 TV commercial for Wendy’s restaurants featuring little old ladies sampling other restaurant’s menu items. Apparently the answer to the question is, ironically, not at Wendy’s. At a press conference this morning, Wendy Thomas, daughter of founder Dave Thomas, and president of operations Carl Frosty admitted that mounting internet rumors are true, and that Wendy’s stopped using beef in their burgers back in 1984.

“It’s true – the 1984 ‘Where’s the Beef’ ad was an inside joke started by my father. I really don’t see the big deal, honestly,” said Thomas. “Horse meat is FDA approved, is has been for ages. If you’ve enjoyed our burgers any time in the last 30 years, there’s no reason not to keep enjoying them. My father was a businessman; he experimented to find the cheapest, yet best tasting meat he could. He tried dog, cat, llama, and rats in our testing labs, but horse meat was the tastiest and the cheapest. It’s even less expensive than beef, if you can believe it.”

“We use horse meat in everything that our restaurant serves,” said Frosty. “Our chili, burgers and sandwiches – even our new ‘pulled pork’ sandwich is horse meat. It’s amazing, really. With the right seasoning, you can get horse meat to taste like anything. Wendy’s is not only fast food, but it’s good food, and I hope everyone keeps enjoying our burgers as much as we enjoy making them for you.”

“Personally, I don’t see the big deal at all,” said Carmine Classi, a self-professed ‘Wendy’s lover’ who was at the press conference. “Horse meat, zebra, unicorn, antelope – I don’t care, as long as it tastes good and it’s cheap. Where else can you take the family out to dinner for $20 bucks? I’m on a tight budget all the time, thanks to a small problem I have with gambling. But hey, when I lose my money at the track I’d yell normally yell ‘I hope they make glue out of you!’ But now I can yell ‘I’ll see you at Wendy’s!'”