by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Justice Writer
Tommy Gimmegommygoo was a typical fortysomething hanging out with the Jackshithappenson State University crowd at the local Bob So Tasty burger joint in Jackshithappenson, Mississorida when half a dozen masked men in black pulled up next to the patio in a black van, grabbed him, shoved him into the back of the van, and drove off.
"It was like something out of a spy movie," enthused second year History of Spinach student Michael Nohtipicalfayl as he wiped Super Special, Super Secret (But Food Regulations Force Us To Admit Is Mayonnaise-based) Sauce off his chin, "only without the dramatic music. I really gotta put together a soundtrack for the next time this happens - definitely gonna need some Radiohead and, maybe, I don't - oh, yeah, Moby! Can't have a government kidnapping soundtrack without Moby!"
"This is insane," complained Becky "Not a Moby Fan" Auberginius, who was also at the table. "Tommy may have been a little creepy around the edges, but he was a Vesampuccerian citizen! And he was whiter than the president in a snowstorm! ICES had no reason to arrest him!"
When I asked her what had happened immediately before Gimmegommygoo was taken, Auberginius answered: "Nothing! We were talking about whether the Mississorida Mud Monsters had a chance to ooze their way to the top of the Frontier League this season. Tommy shook his head and said, 'No way, Jose!' Then, those goons...oh. Aah, you, uhh, don't think what he said was responsible for Tommy being taken away...do you?"
"Look," Border Czar Tom Hohoholearthmann said with what would have been a heartfelt sigh if the sound had been made by somebody who had a heart, "the president has said that we're going after the worst of the worst. Murderers. Rapists. Baseball card counterfeiters. If ICES arrested somebody, he must have done something really awful to deserve it - okay?"
When I pointed out that Gimmegommygoo wasn't an illegal immigrant - that he was a Vesampuccerian citizen - and that he had not committed any crimes (that he had been charged with), Czar Hohoholearthmann's eyes narrowed and he shouted, "I told you: ICES only arrests bad, bad guys! Worst of the worst! Real rotters! Swear to Gord, if you don't stop this line of questioning, I'm gonna have you hauled in for obstructing justice!"
I'm so thin, I can barely obstruct floss between somebody's teeth, but discretion being the better part of not ending up in a horrific foreign jail, I decided not to pursue the matter.
There can be no denying that this comes at a time when ICES is having trouble filling the quotas of detentions set by uberghoul presidential adviser Stephen Siewnottmillertyme: where he wanted 3 gabillion arrests a day, they are barely making 300. Three gabillion. Three hundred. It would be understandable that agents would be desperate to fill their quotas, but desperate enough to take in a Vesampuccerian citizen who wasn't even Latino just because he said a Latino name out loud?
"Did you know," asked legal scholar Laurence Tribaldrumstillbeats, "that 77 per cent of people arrested by ICES since McDruhitmumpf was elected have never been charged with a crime? What are they guilty of? Having a Latino name? Or being fans of the TV show Chico and the Man? Or having once taken their children to a Chucky Cheese? You know what they say: set up a government quota, all inhabitants end up in the same boat...a."
Who says that?
"Chico Marx," Professor Tribaldrumstillbeats admitted. After a second's thought, he added: "I just dated myself, didn't I?"
I assured him that it would have been much worse if he had admitted to being a fan of Chico and the Man. "Well, actually -" he started, but my...tape recorder malfunctioned, so I didn't catch the rest of his statement.
"Malfunctioned, hunh?" Border Czar Hohoholearthmann scoffed. He was very good at it. I imagine he spent an hour a day practising scoffing in the mirror. If scoffing were an Olympic sport - "I would hate to think that you were tampering with evidence..."
I asked him what crime Professor Tribaldrumstillbeats had committed. "Oh, we can decide on that after you have been charged with obstruction. The law is very fluid that way."
When I asked the people who witnessed the arrest if they had done anything to stop it, Nohtipicalfayl nodded. "I couldn't say anything because I was chewing on a Bob's Mighty Rightsy Baconator - basically, the Baconator with all of the ingredients piled up on the right side of the bun. But I did get video of the door of the van closing and driving off. A minute after I posted the video to YahooTube, it had over 700 likes. That's something...isn't it?"