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Good News Week

Norman Bates Gets Mum’s Dole (GNW 6/7/09: What’s the Story?)

A 49-year-old Brooklyn man has been charged over impersonating his dead mother to claim her government benefits. At least it wasn’t to have sex with his dad. That would be weird.

Footage of the man’s strange behaviour was shown in court, shocking the jury. And the judge shrieked during the shower scene.

After the man’s arrest, he explained “I am my mother”. So they released him from the police station and had him cremated.

Social security staff knew something was up when Irene Prusik suddenly became 18 inches taller. And alive.

He begged for leniency – after all, he’d just been told his mum was dead.

The scam became undone when Parkin tried to stop his mother’s house from being sold when the mortgage was being foreclosed. After all, her skeleton was still in the chair downstairs.

Well, they do have a strong family resemblance. She used to dress up as her dad. / That can happen with inbreeding.

He would’ve got away with it too, if he hadn’t’ve referred to himself on the application form as “my dead mother”.

It wasn’t that he was pretending to be his mum that was the worst bit. It was that he was wearing her skin.

Unfortunately now that he’s been caught, it’s made all that digging her up and making a wig out of her hair thing seem a bit creepy.

Despite being arrested dressed as his mother, Thomas Parkin has pleaded innocent. Though he says she’s as guilty as sin.

Parkin says a photo of his mother’s tombstone proved nothing, especially since he’d dug her up.

Parkin told authorities “I am my mother”, because he had held her as she died. Same reason I am my dead pet rat. / Which may explain how Michael Jackson became part-monkey.

Parkin had collected nearly $150,000 worth of government benefits over six years. It’s the most money he’s ever made as a dead woman.

He managed to conceal the death by falsifying her death certificate. Presumably by forward-dating it. / Because a fake death certificate proved it must have been a fake death.

He got away with it by faking her death certificate. Although by putting someone else’s name on it, he did give himself a false identity crisis.

Parkin used a friend to impersonate his mother’s nephew, and her nephew impersonated him. Well, he was a confused man.

In a further twist, it’s been discovered that Parkin himself is actually two children in a suit.

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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