Gallimaufry: Standard & Poor’s Official Apology For Its $2 Trillion Dollar Mistake As Well As Some Of Its Other Minor Miscalculations

On August 6, after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US credit rating to AA+, the US Treasury pointed out a $2 trillion error in Standard & Poor’s calculations. “A judgment flawed by a 2 trillion dollar error speaks for itself,” a Treasury spokesman said. Added the spokesman: “My mother made a 2 trillion dollar error once. Once.” The following is Standard & Poor’s official apology:

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Dear Fellow Americans:

On behalf of everyone at Standard & Poor’s, we would like to officially apologize for the very minor miscalculation we made late last week while determining whether or not we should downgrade the country’s credit rating. The press likes to call our mistake a “two trillion dollar mistake,” but we think that is unfair, despite its spot-on accuracy. Nevertheless, we want to apologize for this miscalculation, as well as for a few others, which we will address in this statement.

First, we would like to apologize to the barista at Starbucks. What happened at that fine establishment could have happened to anyone. Yes, we ordered a Venti caramel Frappuccino, when in fact we actually wanted a Grande. Yes, we know this minor error caused the cashier much stress when trying to void the transaction at the register. And yes, the fact that we had a one-night-stand with said cashier certainly added to the awkwardness of the situation. Nevertheless, we felt the only fair thing to do was for her to give us back the balance in price while, at the same time, letting us keep the Venti-sized drink. We’re glad she agreed, but perturbed that she gave us an attitude during the transaction. Hence, we recommend she work on that attitude if she’s interested in keeping her minimum-wage job.

Of course, we’re only human, so naturally we made a few more “mistakes.” For instance, earlier this week, we tweeted that we had more than 2,000,000,004,000 Twitter followers. Our estimate was off, once again, by 2,000,000,000,000. It has not gone unnoticed that this is the 2,000,000,002nd time we made that mistake. (Ha ha, get it? Just trying to lighten the mood.)

On a similar note, our LinkedIn profile is not 85% complete—as previously stated—but rather only 65% complete. However, we are in the process of completing our ‘Education’ section, which we are told will increase profile completeness by five percentage points.

Let it be known that we genuinely regret telling our wife that we lost $75 last night while playing poker with the guys. We actually lost $5,945 dollars. We felt this monetary loss wasn’t a big deal, but she obviously felt differently. The indisputable fact that we came home at six in the morning without calling probably didn’t help matters.

We have decidedly made other mistakes that do not fit into the “overestimating” category. These mistakes range from trivial to catastrophic to Shyamalanesque. Take, for instance, the Nine Inch Nails song “Up Above It” from their debut album Pretty Hate Machine. When Mr. Reznor was singing “I was up above it,” we originally thought he was singing “I was in a Pontiac.” We take full responsibility for this misunderstanding, and we’ve made it a point to sing the correct lyrics when we play “Up Above It” on our Zune, despite the fact that “I was in a Pontiac” is a better lyric.

Another example of an “error” is the flyer posted on the bulletin board in our office kitchen addressing the Heimlich maneuver. To all our employees: despite what the flyer says, do not “Gently insert the toilet snake” into the “victim’s esophagus.” While this might dislodge the food item, it could also cause extremely minor esophageal damage. We plan on taking this posting down within the next few days to prevent further incidents.

Again, we made what some would call mistakes. But, as the great philosophical rock band Human League put it, “[we’re] only human; of flesh and blood [we’re] made. Human; born to make mistakes.”

In summary, words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience you have caused us, but we’re willing forgive you if you do the same.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Standard & Poor’s