Michael J. Matheron, August 22, 2017

President Donald Trump doesn’t think much of eclipses, particularly the metaphorical application of the word to his nascent presidency. In fact, the word “eclipse” in any form is henceforth forbidden in executive branch agency communication. This led to the immediate mass resignation of the population of the agency once called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA),”pushers of fake science in a fake agency. Good riddance,” the President explained after he and the First Lady watched what he labelled the “so-called eclipse.” event from the White House.

Neither his aides, the assembled reporters, nor his First Lady had the intestinal fortitude to inform the confident Commander-In-Chief that he was, in fact, mistaking a strong reflection of the sun off the Library of Congress’s dome, topped as it is with a gold gilded torch, the “Torch of Learning.”

Uncorrected, he elaborated, evincing awe that false reports of eclipses “fooled so many stupid people” throughout history.

You know, folks, I’ve noticed if you tell a little fib, you can’t get away with it, but if you tell a huge lie people after a while believe it. Same thing with this eclipse business, people totally believe they’re seeing it. Sad. I watched to see if I was right and to me the sun didn’t disappear for a second. To me it got brighter! I have a clear mind. I took science in school. If the sun actually got blotted out by the moon that would mean the moon is the same size as the sun! How stupid are the people at NOAA, NASA, and the Smithsonian? Well, believe me, folks, it’s not stupidity – even though they are stupid – it’s a big lie to distract Mr. Mueller from his important work investigating my administration and me personally. Sad.

Again, we spectators simply looked at the ground and kept our mouths shut. It’s bad enough that our nation’s president believed the gold gilded light on the Library of Congress dome somehow proved there was no eclipse, but who among us invertebrate reporters was going to sally forth with the news that the Library of Congress gilded flame atop its dome is furthermore not the sun, moreover, that the sun and the moon are not the same size, and finally that NASA is not a movie production company whose funding belongs within the National Endowment for the Humanities?

No one wanted to take on that Moby Dick-sized whale of misunderstanding, so we kept our composure, many of us deeply in prayer. As we expected, everything returned to ground we were comfortable standing on – China. Trump opined:

Chinese industrialists who mass produce those so-called safety glasses, that’s why for thousands of years people believe in eclipses. This year alone they made 350 billion dollars selling eclipse safety glasses to Americans. Believe me, I look directly at the sun for an hour or so every day and my doctor tells me I have eyesight better than any president ever. This eclipse mania caused by these disgusting, trade cheating Chinese industrialists will not be tolerated. No more eyeglasses from China. No more NASA. No more astronomy. Thank you, you useless lying reporters for your attention, such as it is for a bunch of limp brained propagandists. God bless Americans who support me. No questions. Where’s Melania?

Interestingly, while her presidential husband was fully occupied enjoying what he firmly believed was the solar eclipse, First Lady Melania Trump courageously pulled off an “eclipse” of her own, a permanent one. Displaying a speed of foot that astonished the Secret Service – particularly given she was shod in high spiked heels – Mrs. Trump leaped across the White House lawn in a few strides and hurled herself over the eight foot high fence like a child leaps across a parent’s command. No one knew the protocol when a First Lady puts her personal foot to the pedal, leaving the Secret Service in statuesque form. Mrs. Trump’s whereabouts are still unknown, although law enforcement agents of all kinds later raided chic boutiques like Marshall’s and Kohl’s. FBI-types told me the First Lady’s personal secretary remains mum, sitting stolidly, “purring and smiling, and occasionally hissing and spitting. She’s unbreakable.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions offered his pet cobra to assist in the investigation by killing and eating the secretary, but that was rejected as too inhuman even under the relaxed rules of the bureau.

The President took it in his usual stride, tweeting that he was about to fire her anyway; she’d joined the campaign reluctantly, and she offered negligible advice other than a Middle East peace plan that many within the diplomatic corps of all nations involved termed quite workable and fair. Her plan to reform health care was equally erudite and doable according to both parties’ leadership. She was also in direct contact with North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, who she affectionately called “Haircut,” and progress towards a permanent North-South Korea peace treaty was soon to be announced. But, the President revealed she

“got on Sebastian Gorka’s nerves and shot spit balls at Steven Miller. She had to go. Sad. My kid Barron liked her.”

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