Stuff happens

Albany, NY – An official report released Tuesday confirmed that, despite months of cautious optimism and robust preventative measures, stuff continues to happen nationwide. The bipartisan Congressional Subcommittee on Unexpected Developments cited 2023’s annual Stuff Assessment as “alarming, but not surprising,” noting a persistent rise in unplanned occurrences across fifteen sectors.

Analysts at the National Institute for Normalcy, which has tracked fluctuations in stuff since 1971, published data showing a 4.3 percent year-over-year increase in stuff per capita. While 2022 saw moderate spikes in things, happenings, and miscellany, lead researcher Dr. Violet Brambling said this year’s stuff numbers broke longstanding projections. “Our statisticians believed early intervention would dampen stuff, but the model underestimated ambient goings-on and casual events,” Brambling explained during Tuesday’s briefing.

Federal agencies have attempted to curb stuff with a combination of public awareness campaigns and legislative frameworks. The Stuff Reduction Act (SRA), championed last winter by Rep. Aldus Wenc, mandated quarterly Stuff Inspections in high-risk zones, and established the National Office of Advanced Preemption (NOAP) to review situational potentialities. However, according to a GAO audit, “stuff remains ongoing” despite the SRA’s rollout, and most NOAP inspectors “were unable to define what constitutes stuff in a way that satisfied both legal and metaphysical criteria.”

In a separate development, the Bureau of Happenstance reported a troubling divergence between the occurrence of stuff and the reporting of stuff, leading to an ever-widening Stuff Awareness Gap (SAG). To bridge this gap, the Department of Occurrence Management authorized the distribution of certified Stuff Diaries to every American household, requiring residents to log each granular fragment of stuff for a period of ninety days. Initial compliance rates have been low, with 72 percent of respondents indicating uncertainty as to whether their experiences qualified as stuff, things, or simply “bits.”

Crucially, a preliminary review suggests that several major stuff events have been inadvertently recycled through official channels. The Stuff Intake Hotline, established to triage urgent stuff, collapsed under the weight of recursive entries, repeatedly recording the same instance of stuff until the system was declared clinically self-aware. As a result, the hotline now responds to callers with a single looping prompt: “Thank you, your stuff has been received.”

The President is expected to address the nation regarding the ongoing stuff crisis during Thursday’s Stuff Briefing. Until then, officials have urged calm and vigilance, reminding citizens that “stuff, while regrettable, is not entirely unexpected.” The full implications of unchecked stuff remain under study.