Garage Sale Savior

He was tired. It was late. The president stood up, stretched and went looking for a cup of coffee from the Marines, the Secret Service having been sublet to Ireland.

He was tired. It was late. The president stood up, stretched and went looking for a cup of coffee from the Marines, the Secret Service having been sublet to Ireland.

Two years ago, he had been hosting "Garage Sale Savior," a highly rated reality show on which the host and his wizards used the "genius algorithm" to rescue folks from bankruptcy by holding garage sales. On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, the head wizard made a crack that what this country needed was a "good 5 cent garage sale."

"No problem," rejoined the host. "We'll do the country next season," and on that Tuesday he got 22 percent in one party and 34 percent in the other in write-in votes.

On Wednesday he flipped a coin, found a party and registered to vote for the first time. He won the nomination and the general election on a "garage sale to the rescue" platform.

Sure there had been a few sales: Midway and Okinawa to Japan; a couple of islands off Alaska to Russia. Renting out the 82nd Airborne to Chile brought in a couple of billion. Holding a presidential seal knick-knack sale in the Rose Garden would have been better if it had not rained. The sale of the stealth bomber to the Saudi prince so he could sneak out on his wives didn't work out 'cause the idiot machine made as much noise taking off as any other plane.

Now, the wizards and the host, after two years of data entry, program rewrites, rescaling and resizing, had the answer to the nation's fiscal disaster. This was the baby, the whole shoebox of a nuclear high octane answer, and it was on his desk. It was imaginative, grand in scale, bigger than life: Texas is gone.

The ink is dry; the title is exchanged; the hands are shaken. It is a done deal. He could and did do it 'cause he had a buyer, which is always reason enough.

Tomorrow, in prime time, we'll play the theme song one last time, shake hands with the Chinese prime minister and secure the national debt for 50 years.

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