[The President's Problem.]
The voting public had no idea that the President had a problem until it was too late. Sure, the breakfast comedies mocked his tendency to look at his wrist-top computer.
He'd be meeting with, say, the President of Mexico and but just before he shook his hand and said "Hello, Juan", he'd look at his wrist.
"Why are you always looking at your wrist?" someone in the press would ask.
"Oh, I was just wondering what time it was at Io University," the President would say. "My daughter is there running up a debt, you know."
And then the President would laugh, and the press would laugh, because the cost of a university education in Jupiter orbit was high, but not that high.
Angry pundits would make fun of the ubiquitous presence of the men that they called the President's 'handlers'. "What are these guys constantly whispering in the President's ear?" they would ask. "Is he stupid?"
The President would chuckle when confronted with these remarks, and would remind everyone about his successful military career at the Polar Defense Station, and then he would solve quadratic equations in his head. And the pundits would hang their heads in shame, because even simple addition befuddled them.
Sometimes the President's wife was lumped in with his 'handlers', because she often greeted foreign dignitaries along with the President. But as much as people wondered about her constant presence at the President's side, they really didn't care, because the President's wife was so easy on the eyes, and so well dressed, and the President was so tall and handsome, and frankly, they were a lovely couple, weren't they, and how did she get her hair to do that, anyhow?
So no one noticed the problem. The President's domestic policy was world renowned, his foreign policy was stellar, and his interplanetary policy was just plain great, so he looked like a shoo-in for another term.
Unfortunately, one Thursday morning, the President's wife was at a brunch to promote tolerance, or justice, or some such thing, and his 'handlers' were stuck in offshore traffic, and he had forgotten his computer on his bedside table. There he was, with the press watching, about to meet the leader of the renegade chem platforms on the day side of Venus. And then the President did the very thing that he had done in similar situations for as long as he could remember, but this time, there was no help nearby.
The President tartled.
Tuesday, May 27th, 2003
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© 2003 Karl Bailey.