GRISELDA THINKS IT OUT

The strangest possible place to meet a President.... and the oddest conversation!!!

“Ah, so we meet again, Mr President,” said a surprised Griselda.

“Desperate criminals! Call out the guards! Don’t you harm a hair on the head of my precious Tiddles,” shouted a surprised President. “And could you please tell me why a man in my position can’t take a crap in peace?”

It was then that Griselda noticed that it was no armchair that the President was enthroned upon but a gold-plated lavatory complete with arm rests for the disabled, and the man looked shocked at the sudden intrusion on his personal activities by an old hag and a confused younger man while his own trousers formed a pool round his ankles. He stroked the black and white cat with renewed vigour as he struggled to come to terms with a situation he seemed to have no control over.

“It was you who brought me here, man,” snapped Griselda, taking command with her astute centenarian brain. “If you hadn’t sent that missile to demolish half of my street in Swanspottle I wouldn’t have given you a second thought!” she added with sufficient vitriol in her voice to convey the message that she was, indeed, furious.

“Swanspottle? Missile? What are you talking about, old woman?” asked a confused President. “I never did anything remotely aggressive to a place called Swanspottle!”

“You sent a great big flying object to my street, and it was clearly marked DO69 MP!” snapped Griselda.

“Ah, 69,” crooned the man on his throne, “my favourite position, so to speak!”

“So why did destruction come hurtling to Swanspottle?” demanded Griselda.

“I met the love of my life...” began the President, “er, do you mind if I wipe my bottom?”

“That might help with the aroma,” agreed Griselda, “but don’t use the cat!”

“Poor Tiddles,” sighed the President, “I would never dream of doing any such thing, and when I dream I dream the best dreams and don’t you forget that!”

Griselda and Bumptious did him the courtesy of turning round and facing the other way. Neither of them wanted to watch as the President of the United States tore several sheets of paper from a gem-encrusted roll and used them with an almost agonised groan.

“I hate this stuff,” groaned the President as he flushed the paper away. “Now you can turn round,” he added as he pulled his trousers back up and perched himself back on the toilet seat.

“Then why don’t you use the cheap stuff?” asked Bumptious. “Back in my office we tried expensive loo paper, but soon went back to the good cheap stuff when the quality rolls blocked the plumbing.”

“Are you trying to teach me how to select bog rolls?” demanded the President, frowning. “How will they know that I’m the greatest President ever, and I am, you know, the greatest and the cleverest, if I don’t wipe my derrière on diamonds?”

“Don’t they cut your, er, cheeks, when you rub?” asked Griselda. “After all, diamonds are the hardest thing known to man and if they’re going to cut anything it’s going to be a Presidential bottom.”

“So that’s what might be causing the bleeding?” muttered the President, “and I thought I was getting haemorrhoids.”

“It’s bound to,” confirmed Griselda, “now about that flying object you sent my way…?”

“It was meant for a pretty young thing I met a while back,” replied the President, thoughtfully. “It was like this. I was at a fancy ball with all the most important people in their finery, all dancing around to the best music ever, and I know it was the best because I selected it and I know the best when I hear it… and out of the shadows came this splendid, this most beautiful of all tender young women. She even put my wives to shame with her radiant beauty and the very sight of her certainly made every little bit of me twitch… And there she was, standing next to me, the hem of her gown brushing against me, touching me like gossamer on a spring dawn... Even the aroma she gave off was special, like the scent you might believe rose from the flower beds in the garden of Eden… and I was besotted.”

“My niece,” agreed Griselda. “It was my niece.”

Bumptious sighed. So it was true, he thought, Griselda had met the President before, but not in her own guise. No, she had transformed herself to a bewitching alter-ego, and had somehow found herself at a magnificent Washington ball in the presence of the great and possibly even the good.

But the president sighed and continued his explanation.

“Having stolen my heart she led me outside, through a door and into the gardens of wherever it was we were … I’ve quite forgotten everything about that evening except for her beauty and the ravishing perfume she gave off. And when we were outside under a romantic moon she spoke to me. Dear Presy, she said, because that’s what she called me, dear Presy, it’s Valentine’s day very soon and I want you to have a special gift. Here it is… And she pressed into my hands a brooch made of gold and gemstones and with a special representation of my own head clearly etched on it, complete with a magnificent yellow diamond comb-over...”

“How touching,” muttered Bumptious.

“It was,” agreed the President, not aware of the sarcasm in Bumpy’s voice. “Anyway, I asked her what a humble President might give her in return, and she blinked those perfect eyes at me, so big, they were, like oceans set in a magnificent face, and told me quite clearly what she wanted.” He sighed and wiped his forehead with a sheet of gem-encrusted toilet paper until a trickle of blood dripped down his face and onto his chin.

“I wrote it down in shorthand on my cuff,” he continued, sighing. “It ruined my best ever shirt, and I’ve got some mighty fine shirts, I can tell you, with cuffs and collars a man can be proud of… I wrote a shorthand version of her words, which were...”

“Us for always”, put in Griselda.

The President stood up, his eyes bulging. “How did you know that?” he snapped, “Only I know what she said, that angel in the night. How I wish … I wish I’d so much as touched her, felt the warmth of her skin beneath my… my… my...”

“Groping fingers?” suggested Griselda knowingly, “and I know, Mr President, because my niece tells me absolutely everything. So you wrote your own short-hand version of Us for always on your cuff and, let me guess, you smudged it and it read Ufo when you looked at it next morning…?”

“Of course,” he said, “and I gave my orders straight away. She’d given me instructions where to send it. DO69 MP, she wrote on a small gold-edged card, and that’s where I ordered that the biggest UFO be sent… There was love in my heart, love and tender kisses and true passion. And nobody knows passion that is as true as mine! I’m the cleverest, most passionate man on the planet!” He stroked the cat again “Aren’t I Tiddles?” he asked, almost pathetically.

But Tiddles’d had enough stroking for one day. It gave a black and white yowl, snarled in the Presidential face and scratched him quite viciously in the region of his genitals.

“Oh, I love this p***y,” crooned the President, and he started weeping.

© Peter Rogerson 25.02.18