he United States Presidential Warning System (or “Terra Box� as it is fondly known around the White House, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the president’s speech impediment) reached its highest level Tuesday, signifying a major presidential gaffe or screwjob is impending. This news immediately scrambled foreign government officials, environmental groups and talk-show writers nationwide, who entered their own highest states of readiness and/or dread.

The little-known Presidential Warning System has been in place since the 1960’s, but it quickly fell out of favor during the Nixon presidency. Aides kept finding the siren-like device hidden in desk drawers or crammed beneath sound-deadening mattresses in the Lincoln bedroom over the course of Nixon’s term, and records indicate it was later disconnected under questionable circumstances involving a bottle of tequila and a fire axe. Efforts were made to bring the system back on-line during former president Ronald Regan’s first term, but upon being turned on the device immediately let out an eardrum-shattering blurt before quickly overheating. It then caught fire and had to be put out with a shoe.

The nation operated without a Presidential Warning System during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, as the device reminded George Bush Sr. too much of his childhood nemesis, the board game Operation, and President Clinton found it seriously hampered his social life.

The current siren-less incarnation of the device, consisting of a black box covered in lighted rectangles that are color-coordinated to the various levels of presidential “terra,� was brought online at the start of the latest Bush presidency. The new system was even praised by the president himself early in his term, when he said of the device: “I made it to the fourth level last night. Take that, Simon.�

Tuesday the system registered an alert status of red, which according to the device’s manual translates to “Holy Shit� written next to a picture of a little stick man with a gun in his mouth. However, officials cannot say for certain how many times Bush has “bagged a red� since being elected, since Tuesday was also the day a White House staffer discovered the device holding up a candle in the presidential bathroom and no one was certain how long it had been missing.

“While this may seem like an opportune time to panic, it is important to point out that the red bulb on the device appears to be nearly burnt out,� explained system designer Elwood Bond. “This is a good sign that we’ve been on red alert for most of the last two years, so this is more a ‘business-as-usual’ kind of doom than anything.�

Asked if the system might be calibrated too sensitively, given that highest level of impending doom was continuously lit, Bond answered that the system really wasn’t designed with a Bush-caliber president in mind.

“I set up the system so it would go red only in dire circumstances, like when Bush Sr. approved the CDC sending samples of anthrax, botulism and West Nile to Iraq in the early 90’s, or when we gave them the helicopters they used to gas the Kurds in 1988. Or really any time after the Shah fell in Iran and we were providing Saddam and the Iraqis with arms, intelligence and free money to help them invade Iran. All those are red-level events. Maybe orange. But Bush Jr. goes red just taking a piss.�

But is there any way to tweak the system so that Bush isn’t consistently in the red?

“I dunno,� replied Bond, scratching his head. “It does have an ‘off’ switch.�

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There must be some sort of law that says I, Rok Finger, can never live next to a normal neighbor. Well, I suppose the neighbors on the other four sides are normal enough. But that doesn't excuse the fact my neighbors to the right are the most obscene excuses for homeowners you've ever seen. You have seen them, haven't you? Leaving their vehicles on the lawn, setting fire to things at all odd hours, walking around the neighborhood in full Nazi regalia. I am not kidding—these are neighbor freaks.

They are the Joneses, if that is their real surname. I'm not sure if they're Eastern European or Russian or what, but they are clearly not indigenous to the area. They claim to be from Mississippi, but their accents are the worst I ever heard. If people in Mississippi all talk like that, I don't know how they ever get anything done—nobody could possibly understand that gibberish. Come to think of it, I'm not sure they get anything done in Mississippi at all. But that's another column.

Don't try complaining to the neighborhood block association either. There's clearly a strong foreigner sympathy streak running through them—maybe they have a soft spot for those who live behind the Iron Curtain, I don't know. But they always take their side. They let them burn animals at all weird animals, calling it "barbecue," an American tradition. But you throw firecrackers at one cat and all of a sudden they're the SPCA.

Nazi-lovers, too, obviously. You'd think that would faze their liberal sensibilities, but they just became very offended and told me I was mistaken. I know the symbols of hate when I see them, good people. A vicious eagle swooping down on the poor and defenseless, and he has it all over his little stormtrooper outfit. Blue shorts and short-sleeved shirt, and that huge bag of dastardly evil he carts around everywhere. If he does work for the post office like the block association says, than how come a different man delivers my mail every morning? Caught you in a lie, Sigfried.

And those little miniature dwarf spies of theirs leave their riding instruments in the yard all day long. For quick and easy get away, should the FBI ever come in, guns blazing, to finally do their job. I've called them three times now and all I've gotten is a tap on my phone and a flower delivery van sitting outside my house. Where are those damned flowers anyway? They should have been here four days ago.

Ginger, the missus, my missus, says I shouldn't worry about it. Especially since I only go outside to throw firecrackers at passing animals. I'm inside every single hour I'm not at the commune, it shouldn't bother me, she says. But it's for her sake I'm worried. What happens when these Nazi freaks kick open the door and try to drag her away to a concentration camp? Or worse, a fat kids camp? Ginger's practically a size 5 now, she'd waste away down to nothing in one of those horrors of human nature. But I do have to go to work sometime. Red Bagel is starting to suspect that beard on Camembert isn't real, and as soon as he remembers I don't wear a beard anyway, my job may be in the stew.

So I'm going to buy a gun. Long and short of it. Hey! Long and short… barrels are long and short. That was almost a pun. But not quite.

Ignoring that, believe me, a gun is the best solution. In fact, I may buy two, since if I'm attacked by multiple opponents, it looks pretty ridiculous to slide across a floor, one gun blazing, to take them all out. And my biggest fear, other than my wife being subjected to inhuman torture, is looking stupid while killing attackers. So… I suppose I'll let you know how this gun thing works out.

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Ginger Baker, my long-loving wife, had the brilliant idea of donating our time to charity. I was happy to do it—you know me, anything for a cause of some sort—until I learned donating time was a lot harder than donating money. Then I wanted to give the money. But Ginger promised me it would be worth the time. I'm still waiting for that proof to show up.

We're donating our time to the children, since Ginger believes firmly that the children are our future. I partially agree. I think the adults they grow up into will be our future, but kids will always be leeches taking all our money and time and eating all our food without any compensation. Plus, what about nanotechnology? The nano-things could be our real future, and I bet you dollars to donuts they're not happy about all this wasted time messing around with children.

That said, I had already agreed to volunteer at the schools and couldn't get out of it by this point. Ginger and I offered our help with Health Awareness Day or some such thing. Ginger, being a real estate broker, gave an inspiring lecture about buying property in economically depressed areas, and then sitting on them until the zoning changed to really clean up. Turns out this has nothing to do with health. I wanted to teach the kids about the value of being under-tall, but was directed instead to assist in checking the kids for health problems.

I was assigned to examine the male children for back problems, specifically, a condition called scoliosis. No, I thought it was a new wave British pop band, too, but apparently it's some sort of back condition that comes from forcing kids to sit in cheap rigid chairs for hours at a time. I don't know about you, but looking at boys naked from the waist up too closely all day isn't the kind of charity I had in mind. It's nice to know such jobs exist, though, if you're someone who's been recently turned away from the priesthood. Still, for me, it was dullsville city. And I didn't want to ask to be transferred to the girls' division either. Partly because I'm not a pedophile, but mostly because I would likely strangle the first child I saw with one of those ass crack tattoos that all the young people seem to be ruining their bodies with.

When I did request a transfer, those jokers in the Health Awareness Day Assignment Committee really showed their spots. I was assigned to the Headlice Check—me, Rok Finger! I tried to remind them I'm practically a celebrity (college kids know my name, I promise you that), but there's no special treatment for anyone at Martin Van Buren Elementary, I guess. Or so they say in the school song, which I believe is sung to the tune of Chumbawamba's "Tubthumper." But I bet if Ralph Waite showed up and asked for a job, he wouldn't be fingering the scalps of greasy little kids looking for bugs.

I tried to speed up the process, streamline it, the same thing I do here at the commune when I hand in somebody else's old columns to run as my own. But the school didn't appreciate my new policy, which was to have the kids who think they have lice to wear red hats, while those who didn't think they had lice wore blue hats. I can tell you this, though, in my short amount of time I learned that kids have no idea whether they have lice or not. Virtually every one of them was wrong. It didn't help that we only had two blue hats and three red hats, and had to pass them around frequently.

Still, volunteering wasn't quite as unpleasant as I believed it would be. I did get a free lunch out of the ordeal (pizza square, green beans, tater tots, corn bread, and my choice of milk). And more than that, I got the feeling of being a positive influence in my community. A tax-deductible expenditure of my work hours in my community.

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