The doorbell rang.
I know, I should get one of those Ring doorbells so I don’t have to answer it if I don’t like the looks of whoever is out there. But where’s the fun in that?
This time, it was a whole bunch of people in severe black suits, white shirts and skinny black ties holding empty Banker Boxes. Even though it was a cloudy day, they were all wearing black, wraparound sunglasses.
“Wrong house,” I said out the crack in the door. No use in me hiding, the door is glass and so is the front of the house.
Someone that must have been their leader whipped out an ID which read ‘Agent J, Men in Black.’
“You don’t look anything like Will Smith,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter, we have a warrant,“ he said as he unfurled a roll of paper that dropped to the ground. It was covered with a lot of legal looking markings and a big wax seal trailed by a red ribbon.
“Yeah, let me read it,” I replied.
“Wait, you want to read the whole thing,” he asked.
“Yup, take a seat on the driveway next to the fountain while I check this out.”
I thought briefly, then turned on the fountain.
“My bad,” I called as they scrambled to their feet and moved to the other side of the driveway.
It took a while but after wading through the whys and wherefores, it seems they were here to search the house for classified documents that the National Archives had reported missing during the Truman Administration.
“Uh, I wasn’t even born during Truman. I showed up for Eisenhower. Are you sure you’ve got the right house?”
There wasn’t any name on the warrant, which did look a little suspicious.
“Yes, this is the place. We’ve been instructed to look in the casita, under the mattress in the pink and green guest room. Just point us in that direction and we’ll be off.”
“I don’t have a casita, and if I did, it wouldn’t have a pink and green guest room.”
“Oh boy, that’s a problem. Beach house?”
“No, sorry.”
“That’s ok, we aren’t doing beach houses yet. Look, our documents show this is George Marshall’s residence. Is he here?”
“You mean Marshall Plan George Marshall? Secretary of State under Truman? He died in 1959. We built this house in 2018. He's not here. Where’d you get this information anyhow?”
“Mike Pence might have mentioned the possibility when we were crawling around under the eaves of his new house. Or maybe it was Biden when we started ripping the bumpers off the Corvette.”
“Why don’t you guys go talk to the guy who stole the official government envelope from Nancy Pelosi’s office during the church social there on January 6. He just lives up the road a bit, on the way to Matt Gaetz’ house. You’ve checked Gaetz, right.”
“Not yet, that team is still in Brazil trying to determine if George Santos is really Jair Bolsonaro in drag.”
“Look, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but Bolsonaro is in Orlando,” I said. “It’s just an hour or so up the road depending on traffic. I heard Bolsonaro loves Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride so you might look for him there.”
“Guys, there are no classified documents here unless you’re looking for the White House’s recipe for the cottage cheese and ketchup Nixon used to have for lunch. I’ve got the original handwritten version that Pat wrote out for the kitchen staff. The Food and Drug Administration asked that I never reveal it. I guess I can make an exception for you guys. Want to see it?”
“Uh, no thanks. Let’s just pretend we never had this conversation,” Agent J intoned while backing away from the door.
I was starting to seriously regret answering the door, but this is Florida so I had the perfect solution: I reached back, grabbed my neuralyzer, pointed it in their direction and said “If you think carefully, you’ll realize you were never here.”
