Friday, August 06, 2004
August 6, 2004
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Wahsington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I had a terrible dream last night.
I dreamed that FORTIFIED ORANGE ALERT PLUS! was spreading like The Blob across this great land of ours, and it was approaching my neighborhood! My wife, Viola and I decided to head for the hills. We packed up the motor home, filled up the tank and drove to the next gas station, filled up again, and hopped from gas station to gas station til we reached a camping spot with a tan alert! sign on it.
We thought we would be safe there, but then we saw a chain blocking the entrance with a sign hanging from it that said, “Campground Closed Due to Service Level Adjustments.”
We wanted to get some information, so we filled up the tank and drove to the nearest ranger station. But when we got there, the door was locked, and guess what the sign said? “Ranger Station Closed Due to Service Level Adjustments.”
It was getting dark and we thought we saw FORTIFIED ORANGE ALERT PLUS! closing in, so we decided to check into the first cheap motel we could find. We filled up the tank and drove til we found a seedy little place called the End of the Road Motel. “Oh well,” I said. “It’s better than nothing.” I went in the office to check in, and there was the Lone Ranger standing behind the desk. He said, “I’m sorry, folks, but this motel’s closed due to service level adjustments.”
As the Lone Ranger walked us out, Viola asked him what “service level adjustments” means. He explained that our Secretary of Interior, Gale Norton sent a memo to park service employees saying whenever they talk about layoffs and scaled-back maintenance due funding cuts, they should always call it “Service Level Adjustments.” He explained that he was the Lone Ranger because he was the last park employee who had not lost his job.
And then do you know what happened? He and Viola started dancing in a circle chanting, “Three more months! Three more months!”
“Viola!” I said. “What are you doing?”
She said, “We’re doing the Teresa Heinz chant! Three more months! Three more months!”
I got caught up in it, and we were all holding hands and dancing and chanting, and then right in the middle of the circle, guess who appeared?
It was You!
You were wearing a Roman Emperor’s outfit, except You had a ten-gallon Stetson on Your head--it was way too big and it kept falling over Your eyes. We stopped dancing and chanting, we were looking at Our President in awe! The air was still and silent. We could hear FORTIFIED ORANGE ALERT PLUS! creeping in. Here is what You said:
“Our enemies...never stop thinking about ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
And then You were sitting high on top of a pile of naked Abu Ghraib prisoners with hoods on their heads, and You were smirking and chuckling as You looked down on 900 dead American soldiers with no clothes and no body armor.
All of a sudden, the End of the Road Motel burst into flames as two airplanes came crashing into it! You were still sitting on top of the pile of naked people, reading a book called, “The Pet Goat.” You looked up from the book, and said:
“We cannot afford to grow timid and weary and afraid.”
Then, as you went back to reading “The Pet Goat,” John Kerry, The Flip-Flopping Frenchman With The Undistinguished Senate Record Who Really Isn’t a War Hero, swooped in on a white horse, wearing torn and bloody Viet Nam battle fatigues, waving a sword over his head! He proclaimed in a deep, rich voice:
“I would have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United States had something that he needed to attend to. And I would have attended to it.”
He smote one mighty smite with his sword, and You and the naked prisoners and soldiers disappeared. Then Kerry, The Flip-Flopping Frenchman With The Undistinguished Senate Record Who Really Isn’t a War Hero, disappeared too. All that was left was a torn, battered and dirty American flag, lying in a pile where You had been perched.
Then I heard your voice, peeping like a little bird, from under the flag. It was You! You were peeping:
“Perhaps the most important reason to vote for me is so that Laura will have four more years as first lady.”
And then Viola and the Lone Ranger and Teresa Heinz were dancing around the flag, chanting, “Three more months! Three more months!”
And that’s when I woke up. But I noticed something funny. I could still hear Viola outside, chanting:
“Three more months! Three more months!”
I stumbled out the door, and there she was in the driveway, chanting away as she put a bumper sticker on our RV. Do you know what the bumper sticker said? It said:
Election 2004:
End of an Error
Anyway, wasn’t that a weird dream? Viola once took a class on how to understand dreams, so I was hoping she could help me make some sense of it. I told her the whole dream, and asked her what it meant. She said, “Why don’t you ask Your President. Maybe He’ll know.”
So, I’m asking You. What do You think my dream meant? Also, if you think You can figure out my dream, maybe You can tell me what Viola’s bumper sticker means. I don’t have a clue about that, either.
Sincerely,
Carl Estrada