Bathroom Monologue: The Presidential Dance

It was a fortnight into the worst depression our country had ever seen. The people pined for the days of single-digit unemployment, or for when they only lost their jobs to machines, for which a few of them would at least be paid minimum wage to upkeep. It drizzled in Washington, D.C., that night as the President was to announce a way out of the devastated economy.

He addressed the nation from behind the desk in the Oval Office. He greeted his fellow Americans, then was silent for a moment. He reached into a drawer no one could see and produced a golden-brown hamburger roll. With millions as a captive audience, he split the roll to its seam and set it on its edge, on top of a desk that had witnessed all the legislation of the last quarter-century.

The President pinched either half of the roll in each hand and shuffled them, prying them apart, then mushing them back together, always making the roll bob as though to some unheard tune. This went on for eighty seconds, after which the President placed the roll to the side, folded his hands and thanked the nation for their understanding. The camera faded to black.

The nation was baffled. Every network hosted pundits trying to decipher what he’d meant or how he’d lost his mind. It was six hours, twenty minutes and three seconds after his broadcast that the revelation came. It was on a comment on official Presidential Youtube, via an anonymous commenter. The comment read: “How do you fix a busted economy? He made abundance.”