The President of the United States Affliction was not savouring his evening meal. His discomfort was not mitigated in the least by the mutterings of his wife Fat. Affliction was not in a particularly good mood after discovering the existence of some gossip pertaining to her ultra secret facelift. While Fat was bellowing out “Just say no to Drugs” the feminist movement was saying, “Say no to plastic surgery”. President Affliction did not escape her wrath as she shouted out, “Eat your green beans. You must eat them for regularity of bowel movements. Stop that vulgar habit of swirling your bread in your gravy. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? And just look at your suit. It is so wrinkled. You should be ashamed to wear it in public. Let the Filipino boys attend to it. We don’t pay them for nothing, Hopefully you have not forgotten my suggestions on the Luxembourg situation.”

Affliction had enough of this insulting banter. He had been attacked by too many people about those damned Messygate tapes. When his wife jumped upon him it was simply unbearable. So what! Many politicians had done underhanded deeds. That was the nature of American politics. So he had broken into Democratic National headquarters. The trick was simple and that was just do not get caught. Yet the press had launched a massive attack on his credibility. Damn that Washington Press and Woodward and Bernstein! Students throughout America were on the rampage. There was talk of bugging and burglary. Who dared criticize the President of America as a common thief? Well he may just take some precautions just in case.

He had some potentially damaging tapes in his office of conversations and it now seemed an opportune time to destroy them. One such conversation had been with that Quebec politician Hecklevesque with his strange story of him being a spaceman called Jiber who wanted a subjugated army of Quebecers for the purposes of returning to some planet called Zortixia and conquering some strange galaxy of planets. Affliction had signed a secret pact with him but matters were not progressing as planned. The Canadians were managing a Quebec flare up without any “justified” American intervention. The score had been evened out with the kidnapping of a limey and a frog and Quebecers had been quietened by this quid pro pro. If matters had progressed as planned an invasion of Quebec would have boosted his poll ratings. Now he had no desire to dabble with Canadian politics. Vietnam had been just about all he could bear. That tape had to be chucked in the garbage can quick. And those blasted reporters from the Post. Their questions had become more probing as the days passed and who was this “Deep Throat”? It was getting a bit too close for comfort. It was time to craft some delusionary statements for the press to get them off his tracks. Maybe his friends at the FBI could agitate for a printing strike at the Washington Post to stem these nasty anti-Affliction articles. Sooner or later other American newspapers would be sniffing around for dirt. Affliction’s chief aide Falterman was getting close to the breaking point after some scandal called Messygate started swirling around his big bald head. Affliction was getting increasingly desperate as Falterman had told him the big consumer advocate lawyer Arf Needer would be on hunt for corruption in the White House.

Hecklevesque was also despondent. His crew was suffering from low morale. One had deserted to marry Minette Reno a big Quebec pop star. Another two had deflected to join a crazy religious group the Flairy Weeshnas. The rest were sullenly suggesting a return to Zortixia. Add to this was the population’s unwillingness to revolt. That damn mayor of Montreal Droolpoop had done his damn best to dull the nationalism that Hecklevesque had worked so hard to cultivate focusing on Canada and the 1976 Olympics he was bidding on. Montreal was slipping into the American fold peacefully like that stupid professional baseball team he had brought to Montreal, The Montreal Hexpos. Montrealer’s were more interested in Rusty Staub (Le Grande Orange) of the Hexpos than advocating for Quebec separating from the rest of Canada. And now that the Olympics may be on their way Quebecers were told to be on their best behaviour. Politics were soon forgotten in the struggle for big contracts and monopolies for the hoped-for Olympics. New hotels and restaurants mushroomed with the rich and powerful waiting to see who would land big wads of cash.