A friend of my wife sent her an e-mail about President Obama’s so-called stimulus package. It was so hilarious that I would like to share it with readers:

It’s a slow day in the small town of Whynot, Maine. Its many dirt streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt and living on credit. A tourist visiting the area drives through town and stops at the only motel. He walks in and lays a $100 bill on the desk explaining that he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs so he can pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher then takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer then takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.

The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local car mechanic who has also been facing hard times to pay his debt for using a room at the local motel.

The mechanic rushes to the hotel with the $100 bill and pays off the room bill with the hotel owner.

The smart hotel proprietor then places the $100 bill back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and now looks to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how a stimulus package supposedly works.

If you are still confused, please call your representatives in Augusta or Washington. Maybe you will feel stimulated after speaking with them.

By the way, in our case, the government still has the $100 bill or should I say $1 trillion bill that we, the taxpayers, now have to pay.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham can be contacted at lhiltunen@roadrunner.com.