Ethiopian Child Would Have Spent Man’s 15 Cent Donation On Booze, Anyway

Story by Meagan Jungman 

| Published Dec 1, 2009

Lincoln Native, Franklin Melbourne, turned on his television set on Thursday afternoon with every intention of watching a football game or in the very least, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Instead, Melbourne claims that he spent two hours watching a Discovery Channel special which documented the misadventures of Ogbay, the Malnourished Ethiopian Orphan, as narrated by Morgan Freeman.

“It was tragic.” reported a visibly distraught Melbourne. “Usually the television is already tuned to ESPN, but not this time—and to make matters worse, the damn remote was nowhere to be found.”

Having, by that time, fully committed to a reclining position in his E-Z Boy armchair, the married man and father of two insisted that he was in no position to search for the whereabouts of the elusive channel-changer. Despite the unfortunate situation he found himself in, Melbourne, known to be the pillar of positivity within his family, attempted to make the best out of a botched situation.

However, after watching Ogbay and his orphan friends indulging in the traditional Ethiopian game of “sit listlessly on the ground and refuse to blink when the flies walk across your eyes” for nearly twenty minutes, Melbourne confessed that he soon grew bored.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Melbourne. “I’m all for educational television—but Christ, I’d still like something with a bit of substance. The highlight of the whole film was when the village joined together for a bi-weekly meal of locusts and river mud. I mean, the damn movie didn’t even have a proper ending.”

Melbourne’s failed movie ending was actually a ten minute segment attached to the end of the documentary, in which a teary-eyed Morgan Freeman implored the viewing audience to dial a toll-free number and donate money. Allegedly, Freeman claimed the mere sum of 15 cents would aid the orphans of Ethiopia in their goal to survive to see the age of fourteen, as well as offer them the chance to obtain online degrees from a nameless, yet highly credible online institution of higher learning which currently sponsored the Discovery Channel.

“And who did that self-righteous prick with his touching, background acoustic guitar music think he was fooling, anyway?” demanded Melbourne, after reportedly having expressed his outrage to the televised image of Morgan Freeman for the entirety of the film’s final seven minutes. “Whole thing sounds like a scam to me. I can lie face down in a mud puddle for twelve hours too, but you don’t see anyone sending me a giant check, do you? People like that only want money for one reason: Booze.”

“Kid was probably a doper, too.” Added Melbourne.

Unable to stomach another moment of what he claimed to be a “poorly-constructed pyramid scheme,” Melbourne leapt into action. Summoning his youngest daughter, Hilary, Melbourne cleverly utilized her natural skill as a human remote control and charged her with the task of manually changing the channel.