SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
MISSION, TX — Sharyland ISD confirmed this week that it paid $30,000 a year for a service whose entire job description, according to board members, was to climb the highest mountain in the Rio Grande Valley and scream warnings about an incoming insurance tidal wave before it drowned the budget. Instead, the district’s health insurance fund quietly slipped $3 million underwater sometime between June and October, a period officials now describe as “the part of the calendar where nobody was looking, on purpose.”
“We were promised screaming,” said one trustee, staring out a boardroom window toward the flat horizon of South Texas, where the nearest mountain is roughly 300 miles away and has never once mentioned healthcare costs. “Thirty thousand dollars. For screaming. And what did we get? A very calm newsletter in August that said ‘trends are trending.'”
The Two-to-Three-Week Billing Lag That Ate Summer
Investigators tracing the deficit discovered the claims arrived in batches of $40,000 to $60,000, mostly hospital facility charges that showed up two to three weeks after the calendar had already politely moved on. Because the books closed in June, an entire season of Valley residents scheduling long-postponed procedures happened, financially speaking, in a parallel universe.
“We have a theory,” said a board vice president, pacing with the confidence of a man who has personally experienced summer. “People, and I include myself, save the doctor for summer. It’s too hot to do anything else. You think anyone’s getting a colonoscopy in February when the tamaladas are happening? No. Summer is procedure season. The consultant should have known. Summer is the oldest trick in the Valley.”
The district’s chief operations officer explained that the bills arrived “fashionably late, Valley time,” stacking up like October snowbirds on Expressway 83. “By the time we saw the numbers, the tidal wave had already hit, receded, and opened a taquería on the beach it created.”
Fired Oct. 30, But First, Please Explain the Iceberg
In a move officials insist is not confusing, the board voted to terminate the $30,000 contract effective Oct. 30 — while simultaneously asking the same firm to provide a full itemization of the iceberg, its melting schedule, and a reconciliation process “written in complete sentences this time.”
“We are firing them and also hiring them for one last job,” the superintendent explained. “It’s like breaking up with someone and asking them to help you move the couch. That’s just how procurement works.”
The mountain, reached for comment, said nothing, as is traditional.
Board members were quick to note the deficit is not an employee problem and that staff should keep going to the doctor. “Get healthy,” one urged. “Just maybe stagger it across several fiscal years.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why didn’t anyone scream earlier?
A: The screaming was contracted out. The consultant allegedly screamed in an unmonitored location, possibly indoors, possibly in a whisper, possibly never. The contract did not specify mountain, volume, or direction.
Q: What happens Oct. 30?
A: The firm is terminated, then immediately asked to hand over the itemized iceberg. In January, the district plans to post a new job listing: “Professional Tidal Wave Screamer, bilingual preferred, must own hiking boots.”
