Meanwhile, in a Washington, D.C. suburb . . . .

BIDEN PUTS $1 TRILLION COIN IN “NO CHANGE” PARKING METER

Plans to resolve the nation's debt crisis by minting a $1 trillion coin went awry when Vice President Joe Biden accidentally used the coin in a parking meter that does not give out change. Biden had gone to the US Treasury to pick up the newly minted coin at the request of President Obama. On the way back to the White House, he stopped at a downtown Washington deli. “I hadn't had lunch yet,” he explained. After parallel parking, the Vice President fished in his pocket for change, producing the $1 trillion coin and putting it in the parking meter. “When I turned the little dial and the meter said parking was paid for 500 billion hours, I was all like 'uh-oh.'” The obverse of the coin is engraved with the words “$1 Trillion US Dollars” and an image of the first US Treasury Secretary Robert Morris stuffing $100 bills into a paper shredder. The reverse of the coin shows the Congress on the right and President Obama on the left. The President is shown facing away from the Congress, bent at the waist with his pants around his knees. “It's about the size of a quarter,” Biden said. “Or one of those Sacajawoo-hoos.” Shaking the parking meter repeatedly and kicking the post were “ineffective” in retrieving the coin. The Vice President then entered the deli, ordered a Rueben and a club soda with a side of pasta salad which he descirbed as “tasty.” Upon receiving news of the coin being used for parking, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued the following statement: “Uuuugghhhhh.”