©2013 by Raymond Alexander Kukkee  

Senatorial School:  Mischief & Liars

 

Prologue 

Today, loyal readers, we're in Grade VI   "Wannabe-a-Senator" class with Mr. Stephen,  the Senatorial  coach, mentor, and teacher.  We are participating observers  in a class on Senatorial mischief, rotters and liars, an exercise  in criminal democracy, the  "I didn't do it if you can't prove it" participatory ethics kind.  To the embarrassment of all, wannabe student  Senators  Mikey,  Pammie,  and Patrick B  have just been  caught in the back room with their fingers in Mr. T. Axpayer's cookie-jar.  Mr. T. Axpayer is sputtering objections mad as hell and wants Mr. Stephen to resign.

Discovery: Rotters & Liars

"Oh, my, that is a no-no!"  Mr. Stephan smooths his hair down, admiring his coif in the gold-plated  magnifying makeup  mirror on his desk,  winks at himself, primps,   and turns to admonish the class. "This is so embarrassing." he says, double-checking the mirror. Mr. Stephen thunders and stutters."Class, It has been reported that someone has been caught  practicing self-entitlement, hooking goodies  from  the cookie-jar with  my permission. As you know, we have rules,  self-entitlement is good when  I approve it, but the first rule is  that we  must never, never, never,  ever get caught with our fingers in Mr. T. Axpayer's cookie-jar! The rest of the Senatorial school has a reputation to uphold so our hog trough  self-entitlements  school  isn't shut down! " The sleepy class gasps, eyes suddenly now wide open. "Who, us?" The children shout in unison. "Never! We're innocent Senators merely holding our cushy red velvet seats for fun and profit forever!"  Crocodile tears fall. "Whatever shall we do, Mr. Stephen, our pork-barrel Senatorial school will be shut down,  our lifetime hog-trough  of self-entitlements will dry up!" * A collective gasp is heard. . "Who would commit such a foul deed, Mr. Stephen ? "  Teaching  assistant Mr Nigel almost choked upon his tea and crumpets. "...er....a hair in my crumpet would be scandalous!" he stipulated. Mr. Stephen rolled his eyes and winked at Mr. Nigel. "That's what I want to know right now, Mr. Nigel,  which of these rich Senatorial  children is dispensable  guilty?"  All of the children slide and sink  lower in their seats and refuse to look Mr. Stephen in the eye. " Are there rotters and liars  in this class?"   Silence reigns.  "Shhshhhhh" someone whispers loudly, "we're all rotters and liars   but if we stick together and we don't admit it, nobody can prove it ". "We cannot have rotters and liars in Senatorial class,  Mr. Nigel,  someone has to be found guilty, cookies are missing,  Mr. T. Axpayer knows everyone is lying, some of you are habitual liars, class,-- maybe all of us are rotters & liars!"  Mr. Stephen thunders. He turns livid red and blinks thirteen times.    " Oops!...er....I mean  some of YOU---er.... have to be liars !   He clears his throat. "ahem".  He stares at Mikey, Pammie, and Patrick.   "Tell the truth now, you three liars, did you steal any cookies?  We'll have to boot you out of class if you're rotters and liars." "Impossible, Mr. Stephen",  Mr. Nigel clears his throat and winks, I offer you a riddle;  as you suggested, I have remedied the situation with checks, appropriate party slush funding and prepared lies.  Mikey's problem has already  been taken care of exactly as you suggested."  *wink *wink "Me?  Not me, fellow Senators, "  says Mikey,  a  frown and devious, worried look on his chubby little face.  "I  do all my homework, I  work hard ,  I like this job, especially the self-entitlements and  soft red velvet chairs and  the pension ten times that of Mr. T. Axpayer and his friends,  I'm honest, I didn't steal cookies, honest, I just--er--borrowed some like Mr. Stephen said I should tell you!  See?  I have this note here from Mr. Stephen, telling exactly what to say,  and it says  to say 'Not me' ,   wanna see it? "Oh no, Mikey, we certainly don't want proof",  Mr. Stephen says, turning red,  " What is to be accomplished now by wasting valuable class time by telling  the truth? uh,,,er...shut up now, Mikey,,,,,,and,,,, ..moving on, now, class, who else has been finger-filching the financial cookie-jar?" "Not me" says Pammie, her eyes shifting right to left as she primps her hairdo, watching to see if her classmate are watching,    "I do important stuff" , so  I only took a few handfuls, but I  already put the cookies back in the jar".  "Besides, Mr. Stephen, you appointed me to do important stuff,  and gave me permission to travel everywhere and filch cookies too, and never mind, when everyone was watching, did you see how I cleverly took the bus home yesterday instead of the limo to demonstrate how clever I am at covering up details?" "Very good, Pammie, but ....well, it's not necessary to bore the class with details of how clever we are at making the school look good, dear Pammie", Mr. Stephen says, winking,  shifting from one foot the other,  and once again,  smoothing his coif spray job. "Damned rooster tails keep popping up for everyone to see" he said as an aside to Mr. Nigel standing behind him and slightly to the left.  "How embarrassing!" The class twitters.   "No twittering" Mr. Stephen advises. He clears his throat, "And who else?" We cannot have rotters and liars in this school!" "Not me!  "  says Patrick, suddenly standing up with an arrogant, brassy  smirk, adjusting his sunglasses. "In this class I can do anything I want, you said so yourself, Mr. Stephen, and what are friends for?  " Mr. Stephan smooths his hair out again and sighs a big one.  He takes a potty break  in Europe.  He can't stay there forever.  Monday arrives and he has to go home. 'What to do?' Mr. Stephen ponders to himself in the back room once again,  while nibbling on yet another cookie,  ' This is embarrassing, it looks like I got caught lying and could get fired;  I don't know how to run a country OR Senate,  never mind a lemonade stand senatorial school......... I know, I'll keep lying,  I don't wish to look incompetent, so   I'll go out there and give them a speech, and a few scapegoats, a few red herrings,  that oughta' do it '. He wags his finger at Mikey, Pammie and Patrick.   "tch-tch-tch.....You naughty children got caught, don't you know  it's bad to get caught?  We cannot tolerate scandalous behaviour.   It makes ME look incompetent  the Senatorial class look bad, so we'll have to punish you, get it?  Someone has to be punished.  We have to look good.   Meantime, as you already know, Mr. Nigel, my teaching assistant here,  will give you checks, and  craft  excuses for you  extra cookies to put back in the jar, as many as you need,  so nobody in the principal's office will find out  they're missing." "But you knew about it", you said it was okay" Mikey blurts out, choking, "I'm feeling trapped,  I might have to go home sick  so nobody can point fingers at me". "Not now,  not now,  Mikey, no point in adding more lies discussing embarrassing unnecessary details, is there, I already decided you're it." "Good idea",   Mikey says, relief all over his chubby sweating face,  "Thank God,  I  ate a lot of cookies, I do have a tummy-ache -- but ---but---I got checks and I work hard and am honest so....". "Shut up, we caught you, Mikey, you just admitted  you're guilty!"  said Mr. Stephen.  "Class, see what happens?  Never admit you're guilty of filching anything, that's our  lesson for today." " Mr Stephen won't blame me, after all, it's  the impression of honesty that counts"  Pammie whispers, smiling secretly, then winking at Mr. Stephen's Cheshire Cat smile,  as she shifts her eyes about and primps  her hair.  "Later, baby" she whispers.    Mr. Stephen reacts instinctively  by blushing and primping his hair too.   "Let's all look good and honest and nobody will figure it out" he says out loud. "Oh, we'll look good,  --- I took the bus yesterday  instead of the limo to show how frugal I am",  did you see that, Mr. Stephen ?  I hope everybody in Canada  was watching"  Pammie whispers loudly. "I don't care if we look good, or honest, or anything "   smirks Patrick. "Who's gonna do anything about it anyway? Nobody can touch us, we're the senate  in Senatorial  class, my friend Mr. Stephen said so,  and Mr. T Axpayer will be here this afternoon with my limo  to fill up the cookie jar again anyway. What a fool,  what a School!  Isn't it great to be in Senatorial school, learning how to become systemic rotters and liars?   The class breaks into raucous laughter, clapping. Mr. Stephen smiles, winks at Mr. Nigel and coughs. "Psst..."no problem, Nigel, we have lots of checks" "Okay, children,  we shall lie enough to get away with it this time;  we're sure the class for systemic rotters & liars has been a success.  Now if you'll just open your  "How to Sell  Major Resources to China and Other Foreign Nations "  instruction book, I'll demonstrate  how to sell our natural resources to China and Asia at giveaway prices without  environmental restrictions --so we can get rich!  Won't that be fun children?   The best part?   Mr. T.Axpayer won't even know the difference!   "psst.....Meanwhile, anyone want a cookie? " All hands in the Senatorial class go up immediately....   Is that Incoming I hear?