Q: Mr. President, I have a chunk of pork in my mouth—
A: I’m sorry, you say you have a pork chunk in your mouth?
Q: Yes. I have a chunk of pork in my mouth and I’m not planning on chewing it or swallowing it. Do you have any idea if it’s possible for my saliva to dissolve the chunk and, if it is possible, can you say how long it will take for my saliva to dissolve the piece of pork? And I have a follow-up question.
A: As I’ve stated previously, the enzyme in saliva, amylase, functions primarily to break down carbohydrates. It’s the gastric juice in the stomach that works on proteins … it’s the pepsin, which is the stomach’s main digestive enzyme, and the hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice that will really break down the pork chunk. But it may very well be that the saliva in your mouth over a long period of time could possibly erode the chunk away … We’ll have to get back to you with some more information on that.
Q: My follow-up question is this: There’s been a tremendous amount of controversy recently about the size of the First Lady. At a briefing last week, your press secretary — in response to a question about how you first met her — said that you were at an after-hours club, sitting next to a man who still had anti-shoplifting magnetic tags attached to his sports jacket and safari shorts. Now the FBI is baffled as to how this man managed to leave the Harvé Benard outlet in Takoma Park with anti-shoplifting magnetic tags affixed to his clothes without setting off the store’s alarm. But at any rate, your press secretary said that the man ordered a cocktail and then began playing Tetris on his Game Boy, when — and I think you, sir, repeated this in a speech you made last Friday before the AFL–CIO — you saw something crawling out of his ear and you reached over and took it between your thumb and index finger and, looking closer at it, discovered that it was a woman, a woman about the size of the letter “o” in a magazine or a newspaper. I think you even indicated a point size, but I don’t have the transcript handy here. Your press secretary then went on to say that within the next forty-eight hours, you and the First Lady were married. Could you fill in some of the details about what exactly transpired in the forty-eight hours between the time that you plucked the First Lady from the ear of the man at the after-hours club and the marriage ceremony?
A: First of all, let me say this — I think it’s very important that people not lose confidence in our retail industry’s anti-shoplifting magnetic tag program and I have urged the business community to continue utilizing the program in order to curtail pilferage and avoid the need to pass along revenue losses to customers in the form of higher prices. Now … when Barbara crawled out of this fellow’s ear — and I think I compared her size to that of an 8-point Times Roman lowercase “o”—I didn’t know what she was. I plucked her off this guy, who said absolutely nothing and just continued playing Tetris, held her in the light, and asked her what her name was. She said Barbara and she asked me what my name was. I introduced myself and then I said that it was difficult to talk here, would she like to come back to my place. Now I think it’s critical here for people to understand that this wasn’t the clichéd bar pickup line it may appear to be. Because she was so tiny, it was extremely difficult to hear her, and with the jukebox blaring it was impossible. When we got home, we talked and we talked and it became apparent I think to both of us that we were just in complete synch on every level — politically, philosophically, spiritually — and it was equally apparent that we were physically quite attracted to each other. Now here’s where some of the controversy’s been generated and I appreciate the opportunity to clear some of this up. Sex presented some very real difficulties. I had to use a jeweler’s loupe in order to find her vagina and her clitoris. Utilizing a bristle from the tiny applicator used to apply solution to micro-format audio cleaning cassettes, I jury-rigged an erotic toy which I could manipulate to give her an orgasm. She then insisted that I come, too. I told her that it didn’t really matter, that just experiencing her own pleasure and passion was satisfying to me, but she insisted. And she insisted that she bring about my orgasm. She tried running up and down my penis in an effort to somehow generate enough friction to cause an orgasm but it didn’t work and she was soon exhausted. After a rest, Barb came up with an ingenious suggestion. We cut a shoeshine cloth into a thin strip, glued the ends together to form a continuous loop, and rigged up an oblong treadmill. Barb ran in the center of the strip causing it to turn and I put my penis inside the end of the loop and the friction of the cloth buffing my erection soon did the trick.
Q: Mr. President, do you condone the colorization of Civil War daguerreotypes, and, if so, why?
A: I do indeed condone the colorization of Civil War daguerreotypes. I believe that if Mathew Brady had had access to color film he would have used it.
Q: Sir, you’ve recently urged Americans and, in particular, poor Americans to nutritionally supplement their food with their own hair and nail clippings. Could you expand on this?
A: Our nails and hair are made out of a protein called keratin. Keratin provides us with a wonderfully inexpensive way to supplement the protein content of our families’ diets. Our bodies are like farms — we’re growing this perfectly good source of protein right from our scalps and our fingers and our toes — and what do we do with it? We throw it away. I think that especially for parents having trouble providing their children with three square meals a day, this is an economical — and I’ve been assured by the Surgeon General, healthy — solution. Using an industrial grinder, you simply pulverize the clippings into a fine powder. Then you can add the powder to soups, cereals, shakes, chopped meat, whatever. By incorporating pulverized hair and nail clippings into your family’s recipes, you should be able to use 25 percent less beef and still exceed the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance for protein.
When we got back to the hotel, Arleen was still quivering with excitement.
“Oh man, what a thrill that was for me! The drama, the sensation of history in the making … but I don’t know about grinding up my toenail clippings and mixing them into the meatloaf.”
“Look, babe, we’re not exactly poor,” I said.
I handed her a statement from our Japanese licensing company that my agent had faxed to the hotel. It showed bottom-line quarterly revenues for Team Leyner from the My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist Miniature Golf Course in Yokohama of over 68,000,000 yen.
Up in our suite, I splashed cold water on my face, slicked my hair back, slapped on some Versace Eau de Toilette, pocketed my gloves and lock picks, affixed my six-and-a-half-inch stainless steel Gerber survival knife in a Cordura sheath to a tie-down on my right leg, and holstered my SIG P-226 9-mm pistol loaded with 15 rounds of ARMCO 115-grain full-metal-jacketed military spec ammo to my left leg. Arleen had zapped the TV to life and was mimicking an aerobics instructor who was firming fanny on a beach on Maui.
“Arleen, I’m going to the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Do you want to come?”
“Nah. I think I’m going to take a nap for a while. Will you be long?”
“I hope not, babe.”
I managed a glancing kiss as she slithered back and forth across the carpet in response to the rhythmic exhortations of the television.