BRUSSELS — The European economy collapsed today. At least that is what the BBC is reporting. The euro might have been abandoned as a common currency, resulting in bank runs and riots. War is not out of the question.

Across the Atlantic it is business as usual. The Dow opened up a hundred. The line at Chipotle is out the door. The Cubs are down by five.

And with the presidential election just four months away and a fresh coat of paint on the fence out back still far from dry, Europe’s “tempest in a teapot” faces some stiff competition for American eyeballs.

Joe “Average” Lincoln, a freelance app designer, thinks he saw a headline scroll across the bottom of the screen while he was on the treadmill, but it didn’t really grab his attention. “I was like, Europe?” he said, “I didn’t even know they still made those.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” State Department spokesman Janine Davies reassured the reporter at this morning’s press briefing on the issue, “though we are going to have an intern look up the Marshall Plan on Wikipedia just to cover our bases.”

Hoping to garner interest in their sovereign debt crisis, European Union officials reminded Americans that the EU as a group is a top trading partner of the United States. Canada laughed.