I've had a lovely interlude at my favorite garbage pile in Eureka, California, and now I'm back by the Bay, ready to start digging for stories again. During the long drive north, I listened to Stephen King short stories while chugging mint candies. In particular I remember a story called "The Mangler" about a possessed laundry-folding apparatus. I remember thinking as I listened to the story, "that possessed laundry-folding apparatus reminds me of our beloved Commander-in-Chief."  And you are now privy to the thought processes of a rodent on a long drive through the redwoods.

While I was gone, my Extremely Reliable Anonymous Source, Lumpy the Mongoose, was hard at work, and he dug up this little tidbit:

Thanks Pesky. Good to have you back, and thanks for disentangling me from my home espresso machine. That was a close one.

Ok. So President Bush didn't want to look like a complete schmuck on Labor Day, given he's not so good at that "job creation" thing, so he announced he's appointing a "Manufacturing Czar" to help bring those fantastic, high-paying manufacturing jobs back to the US from China, where Chinese citizens have been living in mansions and driving Humvees with the high wages they get from their jobs assembling Barbie Dream Houses and Martha Stewart toilet paper cozies. President Bush says that China's horrible currency policy is responsible for the giant sucking sound you are currently hearing: the sucking sound of toilet paper cozy manufacturing experts sitting idle in their homes in the Rust Belt, sucking on popsicles, waiting for the golden age to come back to America.

The manfuacturing Czar, on the other hand, is having some trouble in his new position. Having been resurrected from 60 years of cryogenic preservation in a vault deep below the North Sea, Nicolas II has little expertise in manufacturing, and is terrified of communists. This causes him to abruptly hang up on phone conversations with Chinese ministers. A recent conversation between Nicolas and Chinese currency minister Han Zhau went like this:

Han: Hello Mr. American Manfuacturing Czar. I am honored to speak with you.
Nicolas: Hi.
Han: Is there something you wanted to say to me, honorable American Manufacturing Czar?
Nicolas: Uhm, about your currency policies--
Han: Our currency policies are perfectly fine. They are based on the principles of Feng Shwi.
Nicolas: Oh, uhm, so, er, uh, that means--
Han: That means that when we artificially peg our currency to a level that enhances our competititiveness, the water feature must always be below the level of the village.
Nicolas: Ok! Uhm, I gotta go (hangs up, hides under desk).

As you can see, Nicolas' effectiveness is already in question. Will some humble American town be able to call itself the World Capital of Cheap Plastic Toys You Can Win At Ski-Ball? Will the Barbies and Kens ever come home again? Our fate hangs in the balance, my fellow Americans. We can only hope that the defrosted Russian gathers his strength and is up to the job.

8:08:52 AM