Berkeley Home Depot unveils 10% military surcharge
BERKELEY, Calif. — In a move lauded by the Berkeley City Council as “inspirational,” the city’s Home Depot unveiled a new initiative to honor America’s heroes in a distinctly local way. Described by store manager William Klink as the catalyst for institutional enlightenment, military service members and veterans will now automatically qualify for a 10% “America’s ‘Heroes’” surcharge.
“It was just a regular hacky circle at vape break, and we were thought-showering ways to represent the community,” said newly appointed deputy manager Hannah Fudgely. “I blurted out ‘military surcharge,’ and man, the sack just hit the floor,” she said while smiling in recollection. “It was the perfect way to show our veterans how much this community respects their service.”
At a solemn Sept. 11 ceremony honoring victims of American imperialism, Klink introduced the surcharge as the first step in a visionary master plan for the Berkeley outpost of the venerable home improvement chain. The program, dubbed Home Depot Extreme Tolerance, or HDXT, was greeted by the assembled employees with a rapturous chorus of snaps.
According to Fudgely, a University of California at Berkeley junior, the program was wildly popular with the store’s many student employees who work at Home Depot for ethnographic research and high-concept performance art.
“HDXT is co-harmonious with the tolerance-forward, free-thinking worldview mandated at Cal,” Fudgely said. She noted, however, that most of the store’s full-time employees quit rather than co-sign the Manifesto of Extreme Tolerance.
When asked why the moderate majority didn’t simply overrule the vocal minority, Fudgely said it was merely a matter of demographics.
“None of the quitters care enough about this community to even live in city limits,” she said, possibly alluding to average housing costs hovering around $1.5 million. “So their votes were invalidated by the tribunal.”
When reached for comment about HDXT, a spokesperson for Home Depot’s corporate office vigorously denied knowledge of the promotion and said that authorities were being notified.
“Which is great,” said Fudgely. “Law Enforcement automatically qualifies for our ‘Hometown Oppressor’ Surcharge, though they’ll have to leave their service weapons in the amnesty furnace at the front.”
She went on to point out that since there’s often overlap between oppressor communities, military members shouldn’t feel limited to just one surcharge.
“Veterans can also qualify for the Hometown Oppressors Surcharge and, where applicable, our Zionist surcharge. In fact, we’re developing a directory of intolerant groups designated for special promotions.”
When questioned how cashiers knew which customers in civilian clothes qualified for surcharges, head cashier Amber Yunk explained. “We recognize the police on sight from when we used to prosecute shoplifters,” she said. “And the veterans usually just tell us they’re veterans, regardless of context.”
Yunk noted that while identifying Zionists was trickier, the nearby Stanford Law School DEI office had provided cashiers a handy directory of surnames “that sound, you know, Zionist.”
According to Yunk, the manifesto outlines exciting future steps for taking tolerance even further, including the implementation of promotional badges to be sewn on select customers’ clothing, “making identification of doubleplusungood people easy, whether in Home Depot, around Berkeley, or anywhere the tribunal mandates.”
Mike Charlie Delta is pretty sure the yellowcake is going to turn up.