SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
McALLEN — In what officials are calling a triumph of institutional transparency, the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, First Baptist Church, and City Hall each released a statement this week identifying, by name, the exact person who hung up on the $20,000-a-year raspa lot at Business 83 and Broadway — and all three named a completely different man.
The statements went out within nine minutes of one another.
“The hang-up was performed by Gerald, a church deacon with a disappointed exhale you could hear over the hold music,” said Chamber President Doreen Cavazos, gesturing at a corkboard strung with red yarn. “Gerald raised our rent, and then made the sound of a man closing a screen door on an entire economy.”
First Baptist responded within the hour. “We lease one parking lot, in a limited capacity, to raspas,” said a trustee who asked to be identified only as Brother Larry. “The person who hung up was Linda, at the Chamber’s own front desk, who told us, and I quote, ‘do not call here again about the parking lot.’ Linda then transferred us to a fax machine that has been unplugged since 2013.”
City Manager Rex Puente offered a third account by email: the hang-up was executed by an intermediary who could not be named, dialed, or confirmed to exist without a signed non-disclosure agreement. “We asked for a phone number. They asked for an NDA. We offered an email address. They offered a second, stricter NDA. Somewhere in there, a click.”
City Schedules Emergency Hang-Up Line-Up
City Hall has scheduled a hang-up identity line-up for Dec. 13, one day before the park closes, in which Gerald, Linda, and the NDA apparition will stand beside a rotary phone while twelve food-truck operators listen for a recognizable click. “We’re calling it a telecom forensic summit,” Puente said. “Attendance is mandatory, minutes are confidential, and the verdict will be announced via hang-up.”
Chamber Declares 11-Year Pilot Complete
The Chamber also announced the successful conclusion of its pilot program to launch food-truck entrepreneurs, now entering its eleventh year. “A pilot that lasts 11 years and $220,000 in rent is not a failure — it is a very long runway,” Cavazos said, noting the mission was fulfilled the precise moment twelve trucks needed somewhere else to park.
Vendors will receive waived rent for the park’s final weeks, a parting gift Cavazos described as “the trophy portion of the ceremony,” plus a laminated certificate confirming the pilot is over.
“Eleven years is a bold definition of pilot,” said Rogelio of Rogelio’s Raspas El Faro, the lot’s oldest truck. “My raspa machine has a mortgage. My certificate does not.”
