Report: More Americans Forced To Make Ends Meet By Turning To Alchemy

WASHINGTON-According to a report released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record number of Americans are finding themselves forced to make ends meet by retreating into their underground laboratories and practicing alchemy. Even though I work long hours at my warehouse job, I still won't be able to pay the bills if I don't succeed in transmuting this hunk of lead into gold," part-time alchemist Arthur Shandro said as he opened his wooden chest of arcana and used a copper retort to distill a corrosive elixir of mercury, wormwood essence, and vitriolated tartar. I used to think alchemy was just for people like Paracelsus, Mary the Jewess, or the ancient Qin Dynasty wizard Anqi Sheng, but when I got kicked off my health insurance plan, I realized that my best chance of keeping my family healthy would be to alchemize a panacean elixir of life in my basement. It's tough work, for sure, but alchemy isn't so bad if you have a good Hermetic treatise to go off of, or the Kitab al-Asrar, which is this 10th-century Persian book of secrets that a friend lent me. Though I've learned a lot as I further my quest to understand the fundamental nature of matter and its transformations, I still regret having to melt down my grandmother's heirloom earrings in order to evoke this month's rent money from the prima materia." At press time, Shandro erupted in a triumphant cackle after confecting what he claimed was the long-sought philosopher's stone, which would allow him to afford groceries.

The post Report: More Americans Forced To Make Ends Meet By Turning To Alchemy appeared first on The Onion.