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MONTPELIER, VT – The inevitable march of entropy claimed another victim this week as the fiery manager of the Rusty Hambones crossed the biological Rubicon into her fifth decade. But rather than accepting her new status as a league matriarch with grace, the newly minted quadragenarian has responded by launching a disturbing, predatory assault on the waiver wire, aggressively cutting veteran talent in a desperate bid to surround herself with "young, pliable flesh."
The inciting incident for this roster-based midlife crisis occurred early Friday morning on the league message board. Following a standard birthday announcement, Jared, the manager of ‘Remember Myron Guyton’—a man whose team name celebrates an erotic maneuver from the Coolidge administration—attempted a moment of levity.
“Happy Birthday, Aly,” he wrote. “Or at this point, should we say… Dusty Hambones?”
“It was a pun,” Jared pleaded later, wiping sweat from his brow during a frantic call to the Commissioner. “Dusty… Rusty… it rhymes! I was trying to be whimsical! I didn't mean to imply her reproductive system had turned to powder!”
The damage, however, was catastrophic. The comment reportedly sent the Rusty Hambones manager into a fugue state. Having recently retired, and still clinging to the intellectual clout of "that time" she was a guest on the Emily Oster podcast, the suggestion of obsolescence triggered a violent pivot.
"I don't need to hear that from some touchhole cousin from Wells River," she screamed, her voice cracking with the fury of a woman who once held the highest GPA in the history of Oxbow High School and refuses to let anyone forget it. "He thinks I'm dusty? I’ll show him. I’m purging this roster. If a player remembers who Obama is, they’re cut. I don't care if it's Tyreek Hill. If he voted in 2008, get him out of my sight."
What followed was a transaction flurry that can only be described as predatory. The Hambones manager began dropping proven veterans for obscure rookies with zero targets, seemingly based solely on their birth years.
"I need rookie running backs who don't know what a mortgage is," she declared, her eyes wide and unblinking. "I want wide receivers who still think 30 dollars is a lot of money. I want tight ends whose knees have never made a clicking sound when they stand up. I need fresh, explosive legs to fill these massive holes in my lineup, and I don't care what it costs." At one point, she was seen aggressively scrolling through the free agent pool, muttering about "muscle density" and "elasticity," rejecting a 26-year-old running back because "he looks like he knows what a Roth IRA is. I can see the compound interest in his eyes. It makes me sick. Get him away from me!"
Attempts by her husband, the manager of the Wife-Defeating Grundlers, to quell the hysteria backfired. In a well-intentioned but fatal error, he gifted the birthday girl a new fondue set and a suspiciously large, ergonomically designed lumbar support pillow.
"He gave me a pillow for my back," she whispered, staring at the item with genuine horror.
She immediately cut Stefon Diggs.
"I used to make fun of a former Governor for this," she confessed, referencing Peter Shumlin's penchant for surrounding himself with youth. "I mocked him. I laughed at the hubris. But now? I get it. I am the Shumlin of Fantasy Football. I want a roster that looks like the cast of a CW drama, and I will ride this youth movement like Dick Mazza waving from a convertible on the open roads of South Hero. I want the wind in my hair and I want players who aren't allowed to rent a car!"
As of press time, the Rusty Hambones roster is currently the youngest in the league, composed entirely of 21-year-olds and a single Buffalo Bills kicker she forgot to cut. Analysts predict she will lose every game from here on out, but the manager remains defiant.
"My team has cartilage," she said, slamming a cup of herbal tea onto the table. "And that is a victory in itself."
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