Washington, D.C. --Sitting in the Oval Office, just hours before his first State of the Union address and after losing his filibuster proof majority in both houses, waiting impatiently for the return of his teleprompter that his foulmouthed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, sent out for an upgrade days earlier, President Barack Obama checks his wristwatch for what seemed the hundredth time, before rising to his feet and walking over to the intercom on his desk.
“Rahm, is it back yet?” asked Obama, leaning over to speak into the intercom.
“Not [BLEEP] yet Mr. President,” Rahm Emanuel replied back over the intercom as he waited across the way at the service entrance of the White House for the deliveryman to arrive. “But I’ll call you as soon as the [BLEEP] comes in.”
“Don’t call me damn it!” said Obama with a raised voice. Pausing a moment before continuing, he managed to regain his composure, calming himself down by taking in a few deep breaths. “Just bring it to me as soon as it gets here.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” replied Rahm Emanuel without hesitation. “I’ll [BLEEP] you when I [BLEEP] got the [BLEEP] thing.”
Obama then began to pace the room with his hands behind his back.
Lost in a dreamlike state, Obama pauses by a shelf, staring at some photographs of him taken with the teleprompter in the early days of his presidency. Picking one up, he closes his eyes, clutches it to his chest and begins to sway his body as he slowly begins to dance around the Oval Office to the beat of his own pounding heart.
“Oh where did we go wrong?” said Obama to the photograph of the teleprompter he held cradled in his arms as he spun about the room. Now humming a well. “We had them eating out of our hands back then. I had a full metal jacket. I had a filibuster proof majority in both houses. I was ‘Iron Man’. No one could touch me. Except for those damn Republicans…I mean blue dogs.”
Suddenly Rahm Emanuel busted into the Oval Office with the teleprompter towed in on a dolly.
“Mr. President! Mr. President!” excitedly said the chief of staff, oblivious to Obama dancing in the room by himself, embracing a photograph in his arms. “It’s here! It’s here! The [BLEEP] teleprompter is [BLEEP] here!”
“Leave us alone. Will you, Rahm?” said a refocused Obama, almost beneath his breath, staring intently at the veiled teleprompter from across the room as he turned down the lights and popped in a music CD. “Oh. And you better cancel my appointments with Kim Jong-il, Ahmadinejad and that Area 51 reverse engineering progress report debriefing this afternoon as well. I’m going to need a couple of hours without any distractions.”
“Okay. [BLEEP] me,” said the chief of staff as he exited the Oval Office, being sure to hang a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the outer doorknob on his way out.
“Oh, baby, baby,” said Obama with a Barry White CD playing in the background as he slowly lifted up the veil covering the teleprompter. “It’s magic time…again.”
Copyright Ó 2008-2020 by Robert W. Armijo
