The Secret Service, an organization known for taking every eventuality into account, is preparing for the possibility of a John McCain win this fall.

“Protecting a leader of such advanced age presents a set of challenges we are not used to confronting,” said Special Agent Randall Smith of the Protective Operations Division of the Secret Service. “We are preparing to face these special challenges through new and innovative training programs.”

One of the primary concerns of the Secret Service is McCain wandering off and not remembering where he is, as can occasionally happen to the elderly. Secret Service agents are now required to participate in a training seminar called “What To Do When You Can’t Find Grandpa.” The training program, based at the Baltimore Community YMCA, was outsourced by the Treasury Department in an attempt to save money.

“We’re sure that the Senator’s five decades of service have taken their toll on his bones and we are preparing appropriately,” Smith said. The Secret Service is removing steps from the White House - steps are one of the primary causes of falls, which can spell disaster for 72 year-old hips. The steps are being converted into ramps. The Secret Service is using St. Ann’s Home for Dominican Sisters as an example of a “senior friendly” complex.

The Secret Service is also rumored to have ordered bubble wrap to place around sharp desk edges, presumably in an attempt to soften any possible falls.

The Secret Service has also enlisted the help of the Central Intelligence Agency in the attempts to keep McCain safe. As with any AARP eligible individual, McCain is a primary target for junk mail scams. While offers for “Gorgeous time shares” and fliers proclaiming “You may have already won 10 million dollars” would no doubt entice a man like McCain, it is doubtful he will see them. The CIA is preparing a special task force, “Codename Senility,” to insure McCain’s mail does not contain any offers that could be detrimental to the nation or the Senator.

“No matter what happens the Secret Service will be prepared,” Smith said.

(This article is satirical and fictitious. Any and all references are not factual and were created solely in the imagination of the author.)

Bubba is back…sort of.

Harlem residents were surprised to find former President Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on a nondescript street corner on Monday afternoon, apparently a rare public performance designed to raise desperately-needed funds for his wife’s struggling presidential campaign.

Passersby described the former president as looking particularly “haggard” and surrounded by a small, fluctuating crowd of 15-20 people, half of which was comprised of his own Secret Service detail.

“It definitely wasn’t the same saxophonist I saw on Arsenio Hall,” said Gary Mathison, an occupational therapist who lives and works in Harlem.

Sarah Adams, a physician from nearby Brooklyn, agreed. She happened to catch the president while on a shopping excursion. “I gave him a dollar,” she said. “He looked so sad. I don’t know what he was playing, but it was definitely the blues.”

Clinton, whose wife, Hillary, whose financial support has wavered in the face of challenger Barack Obama, raised just $7.54 over the course of three hours, a campaign spokesperson said.

The event wasn’t a complete wash, however, as a book deal is currently under negotiation. A certain bestseller, it probably won’t be read by anyone.

When Valerie Worthing and her husband moved their family from their quiet home in Alexandria, Virginia across the river to a new apartment on none other than Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., she had hoped her children would find suitable playmates from around the neighborhood.

Instead, she’s keeping them indoors and keeping a close watch at the front window. Her children — Ryan, 4, and Ann, 7 — haven’t been allowed onto the neighborhood streets since last May, when, she says, army recruiters first approached her son.

“They told him that he could be making a lot more than his usual 50-cent allowance if he signed on for a 12-month tour,” Worthing said.

“They offered him lollipops.”

Valerie’s husband, a computer programmer for an Arlington-based networking firm, said he’s supportive of his wife’s decision.

“They’ll do anything to recruit more guys,” he said. “I just didn’t know they’d become so accommodating.”

The Worthings say George and Laura otherwise make decent neighbors, but notes they don’t recycle.
“Often,” Valerie said, “it stinks.”

White House personnel were relocated to a park across the street following an announcement by Countrywide Financial that the troubled lender was foreclosing on the late 18th century executive mansion.

Speaking from a makeshift cardboard podium in the park, President Bush remained optimistic.
“I would caution the Congress against ‘overcorrecting’ the situation,” he said, next turning his attention to cutting down some brush.

Across the street, collections workers began gutting the mansion of its finery. “Same thing happened to my Enron buddies,” said the president with a smile. “Most of ‘em got out all right.”

A spokesman for Countrywide said that President Bush had been “repeatedly shown evidence” of the government’s financial negligence, but that “he didn’t want to hear it.”

“I don’t do numbers,” said Bush to a loosely assembled crowd of reporters and drunks. “It ain’t natural.

“Tax cuts is natural,” he said, as across the street a bed from the Lincoln Bedroom was loaded onto a trailer. All the rest, he said “is just fuzzy math.”

No sooner had the collections agents begun sifting through the impressive collection of White House dishware, when the vice president began burning documents.

At least two intervening workers were rushed to George Washington University Hospital after Cheney reportedly shot them in the face.

According to administration officials, the president had been in the Oval Office playing Risk with the vice president when Secret Service agents informed him that there had been a security breach and he would have to leave.

“Who is it?” the disoriented president reportedly asked. After a briefing on the foreclosure, the president phoned the Pentagon and told Defense Secretary Robert Gates to “find something that connects these Countrywide bumpkins with Bin Laden.”

In what has been become one of the most sought after endorsements of the Democratic presidential primary season, Senator Hillary Clinton received another Kennedy related endorsement this week. The former neighbor of a cousin of a friend of President John F. Kennedy has endorsed Senator Clinton’s presidential bid.

Tom McInerny said of his endorsement of Senator Clinton, “I had to endorse someone. Between her and that other guy, my phone wouldn’t stop ringing. They just kept calling and calling. It was like I forgot to return a movie to Blockbuster.”

“This is truly a great day for our campaign. We have received an endorsement showing the true spirit of the Kennedy legacy,” Senator Clinton told reporters.When asked about Senator Ted Kennedy’s recent endorsement of Senator Barack Obama Clinton replied, “Senator Kennedy? He’s dead to me. The only Kennedy family members I still speak to are former Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kerry Kennedy.

”Senator Barack Obama addressed the question of the endorsement yesterday as well, “It’s good to see America is involved in the political process. This has truly been a momentous year for the Democratic Party. Senator Ted Kennedy’s endorsement reflects that. As do the endorsements of Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy. If we are going to speak of the endorsement of Kennedy family members, it should be the family members we all know and love. Not the B-list.”

Both campaigns are actively courting the remaining Kennedy endorsements. It has been rumored both campaigns are attempting to use Ouija boards to receive the endorsement of Ethel Kennedy.

Michelle Obama has been seen in the company of Caroline Kennedy’s former gardener, Michael Burroughs. Chelsea Clinton has been photographed schmoozing Charles Scribner, the 32 times removed cousin of Robert Kennedy.

Tim Russert of NBC says of the remaining Kennedy endorsements, “These few remaining endorsements are critical to the nomination. Without hundreds of millions of dollars, massive public engagement, and saturation media coverage, the Kennedy endorsements are all these campaigns really have.”

Aquinas College Campus Safety announced on Tuesday that it will relocate its headquarters across campus, but will remain in the same building.

“We had looked at several pre-fabricated options,” said an official with the department. “But we decided it made financial sense just to pack up the trailer and hit the road.”

Campus Safety originally considered lifting the trailer of its foundation with a crane, but instead decided to enlist the horsepower of its flagship Town and Country minivan in pulling the trailer toward its new home on the lawn near Touchdown Mary.

“The new, central location will give us the ability to respond in a faster manner,” said another official who declined to be named. The department is also considering a mobile, amphibious unit to be based at Wege Pond.

“Can’t be too careful,” said a Campus Safety officer writing tickets in the Fulton Lot while the unoccupied Town and Country sat with the engine running more than 200 feet away. “We’re a sustainable college, and that means we’ve got to be ready by land, air and sea.”

In the event that the minivan is unable to pull the trailer across campus, Campus Safety plans on issuing a call for student volunteers to help push it to its new home. There is a blessing of the trailer scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday at Touchdown Mary.

The trailer, which was abandoned by construction crews after the completion of the Academic Building in 1955, features a 50 cent pop machine, intended to finance the eventual construction of a new trailer and the addition of a rear spoiler on the minivan.

“We’ve got wind resistance working against us right now,” Campus Safety said in a recent assessment of its capabilities. “But we do have the element of surprise.”

Just weeks ago, Campus Safety failed to apprehend a suspect after its Town and Country was mistaken for the “team mom” by a herd of cookie and juice-box seeking soccer players, who swarmed the van.

Larry Schlick, president of Leijer Inc., announced today that the locally-based grocery and retail giant will begin offering a new line of products at its superstores, designed to defend the company’s brand and reassert its regional dominance.

“Corporate war bonds,” Schlick said, “will soon be offered for purchase in our Midwest locations in order to give us the advantage we need to keep prices low.”

Asked at a township board meeting whether or not such a move is in keeping with corporate governance and ethics standards, Schlick and his associates were undeterred.

“Leijer is committed to keeping our prices low,” said Schlick’s attorney. “Do you really want to make the good people of this state buy dirt-stained, natural products of the earth?”

“Besides,” Schlick added, “Leijer is a leader in its community, not some greedy, expansionist corporation intent on subverting your leadership and financing a campaign to remove you from your democratically elected positions.”

In a written response released following the meeting, the township board stated that it found Leijer’s assertions dubious.

“So they’ve financed some gardens and parks,” said board member John Singleton. “Big deal. Maybe it’s a Trojan horse.”

According to Schlick, the corporate war bonds to be offered by Leijer will be available in the canned goods and bottled water aisle.

“We wanted to put them someplace that appealed to the ‘security mom’ type,” said Schlick.
“After all,” he said, “you’re either with us or against us. Now,” he said, pulling a thick bundle of coupons from behind his back, “who wants to be saved?”

The Grand Rapids Planning Commission yesterday ruled against the second of three little pigs in requiring that he brick his house of sticks.

“We’re disappointed,” said a lawyer for the defendant following the decision.

“And we plan to appeal. My client will not let this halt construction. Not by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin.”

The city panel, led by Commissioner Biggie B. Wolfe, told the pig that the structure in question “was unbecoming of swine.”

“It doesn’t look like a piggy house to me,” said Wolfe, who appeared to be salivating.

“Well adding brick certainly won’t solve anything,” remarked the pig, who lamented the additional cost.

“This isn’t a piggy bank, you know,” he said. “It’s my home.”

Commissioner Wolfe said that it “wasn’t his problem,” and that the little pig appeared “overly concerned” with the cost of the project.

As required by the planning commission, adding brick to the pig’s proposed house would cost an additional $100,000 – a substantial sum for the little pig, who operates a small non-profit out of his home. That non-profit – ENUFPUFF – was founded in 1996 to promote intra-animal peace after the first little pig’s house was destroyed by a still-at-large forest creature.

Speaking anonymously, a city attorney remarked that the unsolved case may shed some light onto the “gray area” that she said the Commission had entered in ruling against the little pig.

“It’s possible,” she said, “that there may be some personal animosity between the parties in question.”

Commissioner Wolfe was accused of devouring a young girl’s grandmother in 1989, but was later acquitted on lack of material evidence.