Having stayed out rather late Saturday night, Cerise and I slept in this morning. She made us breakfast, which included Segafredo cappuccinos made with organic grass fed whole milk, duck eggs Benedict and Dom Pérignon mimosas with the juice of fresh blood oranges – in other words, a typical Sunday breakfast in bed as served at my home in Great Falls, Virginia. It was around eleven, while we were about halfway through the Sunday New York Times, which I have delivered every weekend by eight a.m., that my land line telephone rang. Caller ID indicated it was a cell phone belonging to my brother-in-law, Hank.
Hank: Hello? Hello? Tom?
Tom: It’s me, Hank. Where are you?
Hank: In the Explorer, with Shannon. I’ve got my cell phone in the cradle on hands-free.
Tom: Yes, I figured as much, but what I meant was, where are you located?
Hank: In West Virginia.
Cerise: You mean you and Shannon are still running around out in the boondocks?
Hank: Oh, hi Cerise. Tom put this call on the speaker?
Cerise: Uh-huh. Hank, your wife – Tom’s sister – and your brother Arthur tell me they’ve been really struggling to keep it together since you and Shannon ran off together after the election in November. All those kids to look after and only the two of them to do it – Shannon, your children want you! Rose tells me the little ones ask her and Arthur every day, “Where’s Mommy? Where’s Aunt Shannon?”
Hank: And all the kids are asking for me, too, I suppose?
Cerise: Well, no, not so much actually… but I’m sure they miss you as well. The point is, while you two are having the great conservative survivalist wilderness adventure or whatever up there in wild and wonderful West Virginia, your families in that house in Fairfax are hurting, and…
Shannon: These are tough times! Tell them they’ve got to be tough.
Tom: Why don’t you tell them yourself, Shannon? Rose and Arthur say neither of you two has called anyone in Fairfax since November. They’ve been leaving messages on your cell phones two or three times a week, too – even Hank Jr., up there in Rhode Island at Brown – he tells me he’s called his Dad nine times since you packed up the Explorer, cleaned out the family bank accounts and headed for the hills like the world was about to end.
Hank: Well, it was supposed to!
Tom: Sure it was – on December 21. But it didn’t, did it? No, the world just kept right on going, just like nothing had ever…
Hank: [Expletive] Mayans! I should have known better than to take a bunch of shroom-eating Indians seriously!
Cerise: The Mayans never said the world was going to end on December 21, 2012, Hank. It was a bunch of lunatics on the Internet who said that.
Hank: Hey, wait just a minute there! You have any proof those people on the Internet were lunatics?
Cerise: Oh great, Hank – next you’re going to ask me to prove that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
Hank: Santa Claus? What’s he got to do with anything? I mean, here we are – America’s about to get invaded by the United Nations, and you want to talk about Santa Claus! That’s the trouble with you liberals – you’re always walking around thinking about unicorns and rainbows and teddy bears instead of worrying about real problems like…
Tom: Be that as it may, Hank, could I ask why you and Shannon decided to call me on Sunday morning? Cerise and I are trying to relax and read the New York Times together while we…
Hank: See? That’s it, right there! You’re reading the New York Times! And after that, I bet you’re going to read the Washington Post, aren’t you? How can you possibly expect to know what’s really going on, reading liberal propaganda rags like that?
Cerise: As opposed to reading Web sites conducting countdowns to the End of Days?
Shannon: Scoff while you can, Cerise! When the Antichrist in the White House starts sending his victims off to concentration camps, don’t be shocked to find out that liberal intellectuals like you are at the top of his list!
Cerise: I guess that’s a chance I’ll just have to take, Shannon.
Tom: Okay, okay, folks, let’s not squabble here. Shannon, what do you and Hank want?
Shannon: Well, as you know, Tom, after careful and extensive research into the relevant subjects, Hank and I decided to standardize our weapons portfolio on the AR-15 .223 assault rifle and the Smith and Wesson .45 semiautomatic pistol.
Tom: Yes, I’m aware of that. Last November, you bought small arsenal of them, plus a thousand rounds of ammunition for each rifle and similar amounts for each handgun.
Shannon: Correct, Tom, and that was just two months ago. Think about it!
Hank: Because you know what they’re talking about doing now, don’t you Tom? They want to ban the AR-15, and ban the high capacity bullet clips that go with them, and then, guess what? They’re going to start confiscating those clips and the rifles they go in from honest, law-abiding citizens like us, that’s what!
Cerise: Things have changed in the last two months, you know. People have begun to notice how popular the AR-15 is with homicidal maniacs.
Hank: The AR-15 is popular with homicidal maniacs for the exactly the same reasons it’s popular with everybody else, Cerise. It’s an amazingly good weapon, that’s why!
Cerise: But since you and Shannon went to those gun shows in Virginia and blew a huge wad on semi-automatic delights, there has been an obscene massacre at a school in Connecticut, wasn’t there?
Shannon: No, there was not!
Cerise: I beg your pardon?
Hank: Shannon’s right, Cerise! The whole thing – the so-called “massacre” at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut – it’s all fake!
Cerise: What!
Shannon: It’s a false flag operation run by the Obama administration!
Cerise: Oh, for pity’s sake! Why?
Hank: What do you mean, “why?” So the Socialist dictatorship in Washington can have a pretext to start confiscating our AR-15’s…
Shannon: And our Smith and Wesson .45’s, too!
Hank: Yeah! It’s all a big plot!
Tom: A… conspiracy?
Shannon: Exactly! Dr. James Tracy, who happens to be a professor of communications at Florida Atlantic University, proved it last week!
Hank: And there’s evidence all over YouTube! The “parents” you saw in the media talking to reporters about the “shootings” are all professional actors!
Cerise: Actors?
Shannon: That’s right! And Noah Pozner never even existed. His parents are running a scam to collect money.
Hank: Videos of his mother and uncle discussing him with Anderson Cooper clearly show that neither of them are upset enough for it to be real.
Shannon: The “parents” identified by CNN as “Nick Phelps” and “Laura Phelps” are fictitious. They are, in fact, actors, known by the aliases of Alexandro and Elizabetha Weisenheimer-Schmidt. Furthermore, she is a transexual and their alleged marriage in California is a sham.
Hank: Yeah – and they adopted two Russian orphan girls and trained them to pretend they are their real daughters.
Shannon: And did you know that they started asking for money for Emilie Parker on Facebook before she was even confirmed dead? And furthermore, why would they only advertise her memorial foundation on the Internet when there were twenty-six other people dead?
Hank: Yeah, and how come Emilie Parker was “absent on picture day” at Sandy Hook Elementary School? I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s no co-inky-dink!
Shannon: But, nevertheless, there she is – in a photo op with the Antichrist, Barack Hussein Obama himself, eight days after she was supposed to be dead!
Hank: And if Emilie is dead, how come everybody’s smiling in the official White House photograph?
Shannon: And why did Emilie Parker’s father smile when the reporters called on him – before he fell into character, that is – and delivered all the lines Obama’s team of conspirators wrote for him?
Hank: Uh-uh, and why didn’t we see any tears when Kaitlin Roig supposedly started to cry during her “eyewitness” account of the shootings in that interview on ABC News?
Shannon: And why didn’t Jessica Reko’s mother shed a single tear when she told ABC News about her daughter’s murder?
Hank: Plus, Chris and Lynn McDonnell, mother and father of Grace McDonnell, didn’t shed a single tear either during their interviews.
Shannon: And who was that second man, in camouflage pants and a dark jacket, that the police pulled out of the woods right after the shooting? And who was the man the kid on ABC saw, that the police had pinned down to the ground in handcuffs? Obviously, it couldn’t have been Adam Lanza, now could it? According to the official story, he killed himself at the scene!
Hank: Right – unless he was kidnapped and murdered there by Obama’s thugs! And how come the authorities squelched the search for the second, third and fourth gunmen? And why did the reports of gun fire continue after the alleged single perpetrator was verifiably deceased?
Shannon: How come Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, the medical examiner, laughs during his interview? Is he in on some joke the rest of us aren’t?
Hank: And what did he mean when he said, “Actually, one of the highlights of my administration is that we make them as nondescript and unmarked as possible just to foil you guys,” huh? If that’s not what a government conspirator would say, I’d certainly like to hear the real thing!
Shannon: You own a gun or two yourself, Tom, don’t you?
Tom: Yes.
Shannon: So tell me, what will you do when Obama abolishes the Second Amendment and the United Nations sends in black helicopter squads to take your guns?
Tom: Um… well, frankly, I’m not particularly worried about…
Shannon: No, you wouldn’t be, would you? You liberals are never worried about the important things that really matter until it’s too late!
Cerise: I’d hardly describe Tom as a liberal, Shannon, except maybe in comparison to you and Hank. But then, at this point, it looks like John McCain is a liberal in comparison to you two.
Shannon: Listen, Cerise, you’ve got to stop using your brain to make decisions – the gut knows everything.
Hank: Yeah, and lately, ever since this federal government hoax at Newtown, our instincts have been going off like bloody murder.
Shannon: Evil is coming in like a flood, I tell you! The federal government has gotten to us with high-tech control systems. You can’t imagine how evil, murderous and duplicitous the Democrat operatives are.
Hank: And it’s not like Newtown is an isolated incident, either! It’s part of a much larger pattern. The Aurora situation was put up by the CIA.
Shannon: They had James Holmes under psychoactive substance mind control!
Hank: He had a Department of Defense psychiatrist assigned to him!
Shannon: And when he was arrested, he told the local police he was under federal government mind control. But would they believe him? Of course not!
Hank: Holmes’ father – and Lanza’s father – both of them, Tom, they’re highly placed financial executives under Congressional subpoena to testify at the LIBOR hearings.
Tom: What LIBOR hearings?
Shannon: The secret LIBOR hearings that nobody has heard about! James Holmes and Adam Lanza were set up to silence their fathers’ testimony!
Hank: And get the secret hearings secretly cancelled before they could testify in the first place!
Cerise: Secret hearings secretly canceled. My, that’s very convenient for the conspiracy theorists, isn’t it?
Shannon: What can I say? Sometimes you get lucky. Look, Tom, there’s a message from the Illuminati in the Batman movie at the Aurora shooting last July that proves Sandy Hook is a hoax – it was the federal government that killed those children.
Hank: Yeah, just look into it, and you’ll see, Tom – Sandy Hook was a massive Satanic sacrifice that was referenced in the Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
Shannon: Get on YouTube, Tom, and do the research, do the study – you will see this is the way things really work.
Hank: It’s the maturation of the New World Order – before they take over, they have to get rid of the guns.
Shannon: This conspiracy goes back all the way to 1961, with State Department Memorandum 7277, which says that the United Nations will oversee the complete disarmarment of the American people under the guise of preventing war! You know who approved that document? John F. Kennedy, that’s who! And now, fifty-two years later, Obama is out to confiscate what the Democrats call “weapons of war” – which means any firearm which could be used in a practical manner to resist imposition of the New World Order by the consolidated United Nations, Bohemian Grove, Federal Reserve, Masonic, Skull and Bones, Bilderberg and Illuminati conspiracy to destroy and enslave America.
Cerise: Hey, hold on there – I thought you said Obama is a Socialist.
Hank: Yeah, that too, the Commies are in on this, right at the top – that’s why when Obama mints that trillion-dollar platinum coin, it’s going to have a picture of Stalin on the front.
Tom: No, the current graphics under consideration call for a two-inch coin, having a portrait of David Rittenhouse, the year 2013, the denomination of One Trillion Dollars and the inscription “United States of America” inside a border of fifty stars on the obverse; and, a device consisting of the Glory Eye, an Escutcheon of thirteen Paleways with a rectangular Chief, a Bald Eagle with Olive Branch and Arrows, together with the Motto “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” as derived from both sides of Great Seal of the United States, on the reverse.
Shannon: How the hell do you know that?
Tom: I advised the Treasury on the design during a consultation with one of their coinage masters earlier this month.
Hank: Who the hell is David Rittenhouse?
Tom: He was the first Director of the United States Mint.
Hank: Oh.
Tom: However, the Treasury has already announced that they’ve decided not to mint the coin, and the Federal Reserve has said they wouldn’t accept one if presented for deposit, so it’s pretty much a moot point.
Shannon: Well, they better not! Minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin would deprive the conservative members in Congress of their inalienable right to shut down the federal government and bankrupt the full faith and credit of the United States by refusing to raise the debt ceiling!
Hank: Damn straight! It’d be the height of arrogant Socialist, New World Order tyranny!
Shannon: Tom, can’t you see what this country’s coming to?
Tom: Speaking with you and Hank, yes, I’m getting a pretty clear picture, unfortunately.
Hank: All right then! Don’t you want to do something about it?
Tom: Such as what, get together with Rose and Arthur and have you two committed?
Shannon: You can’t do that – we’re not insane!
Tom: No, I guess not – clinically speaking, you’re as sane as Ron Paul, Wayne LaPierre, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Ken Cuccinelli or Mitch McConnell, and nobody’s running after them with a butterfly net.
Hank: Butterfly net? Hey, look, Tom, after Obama lets the UN take over Washington, you and all the other rich guys in places like Great Falls and Potomac are going need some place to run! And here we are, calling to offer you an opportunity to save yourself from freakin’ Armageddon, okay?
Tom: Offer me… an opportunity?
Shannon: You bet your soft and cushy liberal behind, mister! Hank and I have located a former coal mine…
Hank: Strictly anthracite, Tom, nice and clean, none of that nasty, filthy bituminous [expletive], no sir – there’s a slight ongoing coal fire issue, but nothing we can’t handle, and it’s absolutely huge inside. Once we put the fire out, it would be perfect for a survival habitat. The front part is actually a limestone cave, and…
Cerise: You want to live in a cave? In West Virginia?
Shannon: There’s a cave entrance to the mine. It’s on top of a mountain with an easily defended perimeter!
Hank: And a dedicated water source. Tom, at only seventy-five thousand dollars, it’s just an absolutely incredible bargain.
Tom: You… want me… to pay for it?
Shannon: That, and also, we need you to buy another twenty-five to thirty AR-15 rifles, two hundred high-capacity bullet clips and about a hundred thousand rounds of ammo before the government clamps down and makes it illegal to own them.
Cerise: Why can’t you buy that stuff yourself? I hear a person can’t spit in West Virginia without hitting a heavily armed redneck.
Hank: Yeah, well, that’s the problem – they’re all scrambling to stock up on AR-15’s, ammo and clips themselves before Obama makes it all impossible to get.
Shannon: You would not believe the prices they want for that equipment around here, Tom. As a matter of fact, if you could provide the funds for about fifty to a hundred rifles, we could sell the excess up here for a huge mark-up.
Hank: Yeah, yeah, she’s right – all we need is capital. These federal government hoaxes have been the best thing for firearms prices since September 11, 2001!
Shannon: Come to think of it, if we can do the gun deal, we could probably buy the coal mine with the profits and still have plenty left over for construction materials.
Hank: Yeah, yeah, like rebar and concrete and barbed wire and chain link fences and…
Shannon: So come on, Tom! What do you say?
Tom: Can I… think about it?
Cerise: Tom!
Hank: Sure… I guess… but not too long, okay?
Tom: Oh, no… not too long… maybe a month?
Shannon: A month could be too late!
Hank: Make it a week?
Tom: Two?
Hank: Okay.
Shannon: Two weeks, max. We need to move on this.
Tom: Um… right.
Hank: Right. What’s that?
Shannon: Oh, [expletive]. Gotta go now.
Tom: Sure, I… understand.
Shannon: But one more thing – I think we might need about a dozen ghillie suits – in men and women’s sizes. See what you can do, okay?
Tom: Yeah.
Hank: ‘Bye, then.
Shannon: Thanks, Tom, ‘bye.
Tom: ‘Bye.
“Why,” Cerise demanded after I hung up and she was sure they had been disconnected, “didn’t you just tell them no?”
“Because,” I explained, “it’s never a good idea to just tell heavily armed, unstable, paranoid people to go buzz off.”
“Even,” she prodded, “if they’re your in-laws?”
“Especially,” I replied, “if they’re your in-laws.”