Absurdity
Gloria Steinem Refuses To Let Satan Hold Hell's Door Open For Her
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
HELL: Gloria Steinem arrived at the entrance to the eternal realm of the damned on Tuesday and, after a brief but decisive pause, pushed past a door Satan was holding open for her, found a secondary entrance approximately forty feet to the left, and walked through it unassisted.
She did not look back.
Satan, who has held doors open for arriving souls since at least the fourteenth century, described the interaction as "honestly kind of a first for me, and I've seen everything."
"I hold the door for everyone," he told reporters gathered near the Vestibule of Suffering. "Murderers, tyrants, the entire Enron board. Nobody has ever gone around. Nobody has ever found the side door. I didn't even know there was a side door."
Eyewitnesses confirmed that Steinem approached the main gate, clocked Satan's outstretched arm, said something that sources describe only as "brief and not loud," and then walked the full length of Hell's southern facade in moderate heat until she located an unattended service entrance near the River Styx maintenance corridor.
She held that door open herself. Then she let it close. Then she walked in.
The damned souls who witnessed the scene from inside the gate described a complicated mix of emotions.
"I've been here eight hundred years and I've never seen anyone do that," said Gerald of Burgundy, a minor feudal lord condemned for various land-related sins. "I didn't know you could do that. I feel like I could have done that."
A woman in line behind Steinem, who had not yet been processed, said she initially felt annoyed by the delay before reconsidering. "I mean, she's right," the woman said. "I can open a door. I have hands. I've always had hands."
She then also walked to the side entrance.
Satan released a statement through his office late Tuesday afternoon clarifying that his door-holding practice is "a matter of basic courtesy extended uniformly across all genders, all centuries, and all categories of eternal damnation" and should not be interpreted as a power gesture, a diminishment, or "in any way patriarchal, given that I invented fire and not gender norms, which were a human thing entirely."
The statement was four pages long. Theologians noted this was the first time Satan had been put on the defensive about anything since the Council of Nicaea.
Steinem could not be reached for comment, having already descended three levels by press time.
Hell's Director of Arrivals Processing, a mid-level bureaucratic demon named Foss, confirmed the incident is under internal review.
"We are examining our door protocols holistically," Foss said, "to ensure that our intake procedures reflect our commitment to a welcoming environment that does not reinforce systemic structures that our arriving population may have spent their lifetimes dismantling."
When asked whether Hell would be making any changes, Foss said the review process typically takes between eighteen months and forever.
Satan was seen holding the door again on Wednesday.
The story we are making fun of: https://babylonbee.com/news/powerful-gloria-steinem-refuses-to-allow-satan-to-hold-door-to-hell-open-for-her/