Fiendish Fibs

In a televised speech from the Oval Office, President
Gawlmighty told the United States that he would be there for the
nation any time it needed him. He didn't say he would help. Just
that he would be there. He got his first chance to prove it late in
his first year on the job.

One day in late August, Gawlmighty was sitting with his boots up
on the Oval Office desk smoking a joint and blowing smokebubbles
through a little plastic stick with circles on both ends. The bubbles,
grey spheres filled with smoke, would drift across the Oval Office
and give up little ghosts of smoke when they popped on the carpet.

Gawlmighty was easily entertained.

As he was doing so, Ick came grumbling through the door.

Ick wasn't tall enough to see over the desk so he came around
the side of it and was attacked by a flock of smokebubbles.
Gagging and spitting, Ick said enough choice words to convince
Gawlmighty that he could blow smokebubbles later. "Whazzup, Ick?"

"Me and Prudent and Rumbo have been talking. If we're ever going to make
any real money off this deal, we're gonna have to take over the world."

"Take over the world, huh."

"Yeah, take over the world. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
United States has been the biggest dog in the yard. And there's no
sense in us just sitting here and playing like everybody's grandfather
in a rocking chair. It's time to bite."

"We don't have grandmas or grandpas."

"Yeah, I know. But stay with me here, you burnout!"

"Okay. Me focus."

"Great. Well, we've decided to take over the world and make it a safe place
to do business in."

"Okay. And you need me why?"

"Well, we don't really need you. I just wanted to make sure you were
in the loop. We've already set in motion what's going to be. It happens
next Tuesday."

"What happens next Tuesday?"

"We're going to blow up Disneyland."

Gawlmighty looked at his brother. "When it's empty?"

"No," said Ick. "That wouldn't do us any good. It's got to be full of people
so that when we blow it up so America will be outraged like they were over
Pearl Harbor and let us start as many wars as we want and suspend their
rights and everything."

"You sure this is gonna work?"

"We're counting on the people of the United States being dumb enough to
fall for it no matter how set-up it looks."

"Oh, okay. It'll work."



In the White House bunker, Ick wore an army helmet he'd bought
at an Army surplus store. And he held a cigar butt on one side of his mouth
while he talked out of the other. "You see, in about two hours you'll be reading
a book about a duck to a bunch of school children. You can't get a better alibi
than that."

"I don't like to read and I don't like kids. They're funny lookin'!"

"That's okay. You don't really have to read the book and you'll only be with the
kids until we blow up Disneyland. Then you can have a press conference from
the school. Having all the kids around you will make you look innocent."

"Whatever!"

"Then, after your press conference with your little alibis, we'll signal all the
demolition teams to set off the explosions in the Magic Kingdom."

"Whoa! Are there gonna be people on those rides?"

"Only poor people."

"Oh, whew! You had me worried there for a minute."

Ick laid out a map of the island of California on the tabletop. "Then,
after the wreckage stops smoking, we'll have salvage ships ready
to haul off all the evidence and dump it in the ocean. And we'll make
the blueprints of Disneyland double top secret classified
for a hundred years just so nobody can prove we lied."

"You think they'll all be stupid enough not to see that there couldn't
be any reason for making the blueprints classified except that we've
got something to hide?"

"No, we'll spread the talking point that anyone who questions the official
story of the catastrophe is a nut case."

Gawlmighty stuck a tiny gold spoon up his nose and sniffed. "You really
think everybody's gonna buy that?"

"Sure," said Ick. "It's like Hitler said, 'The bigger the lie, the more people
will believe it."

"Oh, yeah," Gawlmighty sniffed. "Who's Hitler?"