Or how the FBI helped clean the house
There I was, standing in my front yard, minding my own business and wondering what the neighbors were up to. When suddenly a black sedan followed by a phalanx of black SUVs squealed around the corner and pulled up in front of residences on my block and stopped.
The doors of the darkly colored caravan flung open and various aviator sunglasses wearing authority looking types disembarked and gathered in a group in the middle of the street.
Like a team, they huddled as they gathered instructions on how to proceed in the pre-planned and rehearsed maneuvers that were, from the looks of things, to begin imminently.
Once they broke, they fanned out over the neighborhood, scooting up walkways, trampling flower beds and divoting lawns. The concerted knocking on doors and ringing of doorbells began in what sounded like a cacophony of chaotic symphonic hullabaloo.
Bewildered denizens answered some doors and well-dressed fanatics forcibly opened others zealously. All domicile openings were eventually breached.
Scratching the only part of myself not standing at attention, I asked the fedora adorned operative that approached my crib what his assigned mission was.
“We’re representatives of the federal government. There has been a breach of security regarding sensitive top-secret documents. We’ve caught a former president, then the current one, then a former VP. Once that all happened, they formed a task force. They realized that if past officials have unauthorized custody of top secret classified material, then we will check everyone to assure transparency and equality.”
“And maybe also to direct attention away from, and reduce the appearance of, any crimes committed,” I said.
The officer reciprocated my comment with an almost catlike blankest of blank stares.
“I’ll politely ask you if we can search your house, but it’s only a courtesy inquiry as I have a federal warrant to do so.” he answered smarmily.
“Proceed.” I waved an arm towards my home.
“If I have received secret documents, it’s a secret that I have stealthily kept from myself.”
I opened my front door and the agents of the federal government poured in. Before I knew it, their numbers grew to the number of donuts I bought that morning, by my estimation. They opened drawers, some of which I haven’t opened in years, and I curiously peeked over their shoulders to see what was in them.
The agents rifled through files and boxes containing papers, my collection of soil samples of various national parks and a steering wheel puller for a 1959 Edsel that I should’ve disposed of some time ago. When I asked the crew if they could remove the neglected and superfluous junk as a service to me and my country, all they met me with was disdain. They weren’t as collegial and supportive of me as I was to them, that’s for certain.
Once they completed the ransacking of my humble abode, they left me to clean up the mess. The feeling I had was that I had just moved in. Only the unpacking would’ve been more organized. Thinking that they have dealt me lemons to my advantage, I began with the making of lemonade and called the city sanitation service.
But that didn’t work out as others had the same idea of renting a dumpster to rid themselves of stuff that the government had exposed as being useless debris.
So, I wandered back outside.
Once there, they surrounded the original officer that I had previously spoken with. His underling charges were amid reporting to him. Nonchalantly, I sauntered up behind him to eavesdrop on the reportage.
“Well, have any of you found anything notable to disclose?”
“There was a bottle of booze hidden in a drawer when the woman in the house said no one there drank.”
“We found many documents that were marked secret.” “Yes? What did they say!?!” “It turns out children wrote them. They were letters to Santa.”
“We found a file in a box stamped top secret, but it was a manuscript to a spy book a guy was writing called Top Secret.”
“A document turned up, and we thought it said secrets, but it actually had secretions written on it.”
“There was something on a shelf that said Top Secret!, but it was a movie, so we made lunch and watched it. The lady that owned the house got mad that we ate some meatloaf from the fridge so she threw us out, but Agent Miller swiped the movie so we could watch it later! We showed her, huh Miller?” Agent and Miller high-five.
Dejected, the original officer instructed his charges to get back into the black SUVs and they sped out of the neighborhood almost as fast as they entered.
They also cleaned out me of donuts, and they completely missed the framed copy of classified missile launch codes, hanging on the wall in plain sight, that I bought from a disgruntled CIA agent at our local HOA sponsored garage sale just last month.
Another fine example of our tax dollars at work.
