The President Comes to Stay
A humor short story
Hugh explained it afterwards by saying that, failing access to castles and dungeons, really the best place to hide a president is in plain sight. If Washington has any dungeons, a reputable but modest old law firm that mostly handles wills and trusts doesn’t have access to them; so when Timothy Kelleher walked into the offices of Makepeace and Caulfield on a Friday morning and informed them that he had the deposed president of Macamia, the president’s wife, daughter, and two secretaries on his yacht in the Potomac, and required a safe place to deposit them temporarily, the firm found itself in a unique situation.
Makepeace and Caulfield had always rather regretted the Kelleher connection, even though the family had been old and valued clients. The firm saw relatively little of Tim Kelleher, who spent most of his time racketing around the world on his yacht engaged in stimulating and highly unofficial activities, but on the occasions he did drop in requiring legal services it was always for something unorthodox. This wasn’t the first time he had been mixed up in a South American revolution, but he was right in at the top of this one, on the side of the Government this time. When the capitol city fell to the rebels, he had managed to smuggle off the President and his suite in his yacht without anyone knowing how they had left the country. The United States was favorable to the old Government, and might be persuaded to help restore it given certain concessions (chiefly regarding the export of bananas), but it wasn’t about to send out gunboats to collect the fugitive President on a mere speculative chance. He would have to make it to Washington to establish diplomatic relations himself—alive and in one piece.
The Congressman of Tim Kelleher’s acquaintance who could arrange a meeting with the proper person at the State Department was out of town till Monday, Tim explained, and so he merely had to find a place to keep the Presidential party ashore till then—the yacht, he said, would attract too much attention once it got around that he had come from Macamia. Naturally he had come to his old family lawyers as the most trustworthy parties he knew for help with the matter. Naturally.
The firm made a very slight attempt to protest that hiding South American presidents was not in their usual line of business, but to little avail—one could not convey those types of things to Tim Kelleher. Surely a good lawyer knew some discreet place where five people could stay for two days. Surely.
The two Mr. Makepeaces rather feebly suggested a private detective. Oh, no, nothing like that, Kelleher assured them. Nobody in America knew the Presidential party was aboard the yacht except the reputable and shaken firm of Makepeace and Caulfield, and even if the Macamian rebel faction did have spies in Washington, they wouldn’t know anything was afoot till Kelleher made contact with the Congressman. If the party was stowed away somewhere safely before that contact was made, they couldn’t be traced. Without a private detective to comment, there was a kind of unanswerable logic to this, and so it was left to my cousin Hugh, the junior partner, to save the situation by suggesting that if all that was really needed was a quiet, out-of-the-way lodging, then surely it would meet the case to simply have the President and his family received as guests of his father and mother in the Caulfield family home in the suburbs.
And so it was arranged. President Segundado, his wife, daughter, the two secretaries, and the minimum of luggage that Tim could persuade them to limit themselves to were landed from the yacht and conveyed in two closed cabs to the Caulfield home. No one saw them arrive except for the neighbors on either side and the neighbors across the street. No one knew the Caulfields had guests except for the people living on two or three blocks around.
My mother (we live within that limit) was a little surprised that Aunt Mary hadn’t told her they were expecting visitors, but was it was put forth as an unexpected arrival, which as far as Mother was concerned perfectly accounted for the vague and disjointed nature of Aunt Mary’s conversation over the telephone later that evening. President Segundado and his wife, temporarily rechristened Señor and Señora Garcia, of California, sat down with their daughter and their hosts to a dinner that had had several courses hastily improvised, with ice, lettuce, and fruit ordered in from the nearest grocer—Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield both suffering private apprehensions that the deliveryman would be assassinated en route and his place taken by a Macamian rebel spy who would gain access through the kitchen carrying a basket of produce. Personally I think Bridget Mahoney in the kitchen could successfully repel a detachment of guerillas if called upon, and Hugh agreed with me when I said as much to him later, but for the first few hours his parents were too nervous to be comforted by a remark like that made either humorously or seriously.
Later, though, when the guests had all retired to their rooms and Hugh held a private conclave with his parents in the library, explaining everything clearly all over again and stressing the perfect naturalness and simplicity of the whole affair, Aunt Mary’s and Uncle Robert’s minds were somewhat relieved and they went to bed feeling comparatively at ease.
They had their first shock next morning at the sight of President Segundado taking an early-morning airing in the back yard, attired in white flannels and a wide-brimmed Panama hat and smoking a large Cuban cigar. It seems the President was an early riser and always went out to take the air first thing, and wasn’t going to let a little thing like being in hiding in fear of his life interfere with his morning routine. Bridget Mahoney had the back door propped open and had arranged most of her work in the kitchen so she could watch him through the screen door, and three or four other back doors and stoops with a view of the Caulfields’ yard had a Bridget or Blanche or Nancy also taking in the spectacle while beating batter or shaking out dishtowels, which appeared to discompose the President not one bit.
When he saw the Caulfields were up he came straight into the house and bid them a polite good-morning and accompanied them to breakfast so tranquilly that neither Hugh or his father could think of a way to phrase a hint about the indiscretion of the President making himself so highly visible to the neighborhood eye. Perhaps he had merely underestimated the eye-catching nature of the Panama hat. But you had better believe their minds were racing trying to think of discreet ways to keep him occupied indoors all day.
The president’s wife came down to breakfast, and the two secretaries, but not the daughter. After the meal Madame Segundado, a stately, placid woman with shining braided black hair and amazing filigree earrings, brought out her needlework and occupied herself for the morning with that and some conversation with Aunt Mary on housekeeping matters, in which they understood each other perfectly even though Aunt Mary spoke no Spanish and Madame Segundado had only a little English. Meanwhile, Uncle Robert took the President off to the library, and as the latter was a cultured man who spoke good English, they were able to pass several agreeable hours looking over Uncle Robert’s books and discoursing on a number of subjects.
At eleven o’clock Lucrezia Segundado came downstairs. My private suspicion is that she had stayed in her room until she was sure there was no chance of someone bringing her up a tray, but perhaps I am doing her an injustice. She was only seventeen, and a little spoiled, and completely uninterested in her country’s political affairs. On the yacht voyage she had been eclipsed by seasickness, but now she had recovered from that she was merely extremely bored—and unlike her parents she had no one in the house who shared her interests, though I can’t say she didn’t try. She asked Hugh directly if he would escort her out for a walk, and when he explained the inadvisability of this, given the circumstances, she gave an indifferent shrug.
“Politics are so tiresome,” she said. “I wish my father had remained a silk merchant instead of becoming president. We used to have much more pleasant company at home, and there was not nearly so much danger.”
Hugh told me later he was nearly floored by the way she said ‘danger’ as if it was merely an everyday inconvenience, like cabbage flies on one’s roses or a yapping dog next door. However, I supposed if you have lived through three or four revolutions before the age of seventeen, it becomes rather commonplace.
The two secretaries took life most seriously of anyone in the party. One was young and the other was middle-aged, and they watched the clock and had a portfolio of papers which they guarded anxiously between them. They spent most of the day with the papers spread out on the dining-room table, talking in lowered voices and stopping short every time Bridget came through the room, until Hugh suspected she was doing it on purpose and concocted some employment for her elsewhere. Bridget, of course, had not been told the real identities of the guests, but I strongly suspect she knew three-quarters of the truth anyway, as she always does.
In the afternoon the whole Presidential party retired for their siestas, and Aunt Mary was so worn out from the strain of nothing happening but expecting it to happen any minute that she followed their example. Uncle Robert paced the perimeter. That is, he went from the sitting-room through the hall into the library, and from the library to the dining-room, and back to the sitting-room again, until Hugh, who was trying to read over some documents pertaining to one of Makepeace and Caulfield’s more conventional cases, was driven nearly crazy. Uncle Robert saw this, so he went out in the back yard, and to distract himself he lit a cigar that the President had presented him with. This turned out to be a mistake—Uncle Robert doesn’t smoke cigars often, and this was the strongest one he had ever tried. So he put it out and came back inside and threw it in the library wastebasket, and went upstairs to try the siesta method.
Ten minutes later Hugh smelled smoke. He came out of the sitting-room into the hall and saw it billowing from the library door, and shouted for Bridget as he dashed through it into the room. Bridget came, saw, and sensibly rushed back to the kitchen for a pitcher of water, and then back again to pump a pailful, but she accompanied these tasks with loud, repeated shouts of “Fire! FIRE!” She said afterwards in injured tones that she was only thinking of the safety of the household, which was no doubt true. My aunt and uncle and all their guests came pouring downstairs, the two secretaries vainly insisting it was a trick of the rebels to get them out of the house; but Uncle Robert wouldn’t listen and got everybody safely out on the front lawn. The younger secretary suddenly turned white with the realization he had left behind the portfolio of precious papers, and bolted straight back in through the front door to rescue it, and Aunt Mary covered her eyes in horrified certainty that she was watching him rush to his death in a blazing inferno.
But the fire hadn’t progressed any further than the library wastebasket. Hugh had dumped a carafe of drinking water from the library desk on it, then the pitcher Bridget brought him, and Bridget’s pailful finished the job (and the library carpet). The whole house was full of smoke, and by the time Hugh and Bridget had opened all the windows on the ground floor and driven it out by waving brooms and sofa-cushions, half the neighborhood had gathered on the street in front of the house and the other half were hanging out of their upstairs windows to watch.
Uncle Robert, with real presence of mind, managed to scotch any suggesting of sending for the fire brigade, as soon as Bridget shouted from the front parlor window that the fire was out. The idea of a paragraph about the fire in the newspaper was a ghastly one, since it would be hard to suppress any mention of houseguests. It was hard enough for him to get them in off the lawn and away from the naturally curious neighbors without appearing anxious to do so, given the attention-attracting nature of Lucrezia’s flowered silk dressing-gown and the younger secretary clutching a large leather portfolio to his bosom.
By the time they sat down to a late supper, the smell of smoke had not quite been dispelled, though aside from the minor damage in the library everything else was back to normal. There was little conversation at table, as nearly everyone was rather tired or suffering from silent strain. The only notable diversion came when an automobile backfired two blocks away and both Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield and the two secretaries jumped as if they (or the President) had been shot. Hugh made no attempt to lighten the mood, but sat and thought of a lot of choice things he would probably never be able to say to Tim Kelleher.
Sunday morning presented some delicate decisions. The South American visitors were of course Roman Catholic, but their attending the nearest Mass was naturally deemed inadvisable under the circumstances. Mrs. Caulfield had never stayed home from church for the sake of guests before in her life, and so she was persuaded to go as usual so nothing would appear out of the ordinary. Accordingly she attended church with her husband and son, and drew the interested attention of all her friends by dropping her hymnbook with a resounding bang at the close of the last hymn before the sermon, dropping her handbag twice, and dropping a coin for the collection plate which rolled away under the pew and defied the combined efforts of Mr. Caulfield, the deacon with the plate, and two small boys in an adjoining pew to find it.
After dinner that day Mother and I strolled over to the Caulfields’ for a Sunday afternoon visit, as is often our custom, with little idea what additional embarrassments we were causing with this one. Hugh got off the easiest—he saw that after three minutes’ conversation with their distinguished guests my nose was twitching with curiosity, so he took me aside and told me with a cousin’s frankness that while he respected my good sense and discretion, professional responsibility prevented him from telling me anything, but if I would just behave well he would explain everything later. Aunt Mary fared less well fielding a battery of perfectly normal questions from Mother about her guests—I fear I wasn’t as much help as I might have been, for I was fascinated by the dignified manners and expansive conversation of the President (or Señor Garcia, as I knew him then) and the sulky prettiness of Lucrezia.
Hugh went out after a bit to fetch Aunt Mary some headache powders from the drugstore, and on returning, he encountered the elder Mr. Makepeace perambulating very slowly past the house on the opposite sidewalk, trying not to look as if he was looking at it. Mr. Makepeace jumped about six inches when Hugh accosted him, and explained that he was ‘just out for a stroll,’ though it looked more like he had come to see whether the Caulfield house was still standing or had been blown up by a rebel bomb. To allay his anxieties, Hugh invited him in, assuring him that since Mr. Makepeace had never met President Segundado no one could trace a connection through a mere social call. So he came inside, and I was treated to a view of the most painful fifteen minutes of formal social call I hope to witness in my life. The President was as tranquil as ever, but Mr. Makepeace made things awkward by asking desperately polite questions about California, which Lucrezia amused herself by answering imaginatively and at length. She did it with such panache that I perceived Mr. Makepeace casting doubtful glances at her, and at her parents, his brow knitted as if he was wondering whether they hadn’t been landed with a set of imposters after all.
Presently Mother departed, a little puzzled by Aunt Mary’s behavior but still unaware that she had been rubbing elbows with international diplomacy; but I was so enchanted by the still enigmatic scenario that I wangled an invitation to supper. Hugh gave me a reproachful look, but when I had a chance for a word alone again I assured him I was acting in his best interests.
“I am behaving very well,” I told him; “I am doing just what you requested and being blind, deaf, and oblivious to all oddities. Poor Aunt Mary obviously needs some moral support, which I can lend her without knowing in the least what it’s all about, and I think you’ll find the presence of a third party beneficial.”
“Ninth party, you mean,” said Hugh a bit grimly.
But I think he ended up being glad I stayed, for the sake of his own moral support. No sooner had Mr. Makepeace taken his leave than the final straw arrived, in the shape of Hugh’s younger brother Hal, popping home on a weekend visit from VMI as he was often accustomed to do—the one circumstance Hugh had entirely overlooked. To Hugh this was unmitigated disaster, for Hal has loads of charm but nothing that a lawyer would call discretion. Lucrezia brightened remarkably at sight of his uniform, and monopolized him completely as soon as Hal had gaily hailed his family and made his bow to the supposed Garcias. You couldn’t blame her, being seventeen and pretty and having suffered not only seasickness but a total dearth of male attention on the voyage from Macamia—Tim Kelleher was the brisk strong adventurer type whose mind barely registered her as a mere child, and neither of the secretaries was in love with her (the younger one was the more serious of the two). Within five minutes she and Hal were laughing and talking like old friends, and Hugh and his parents suffering the torments of amateur secret agents. Lucrezia’s parents seemed undisturbed—either they were confident of her political indifference or simply of too serene a disposition to worry.
Hal had been handed the official Garcia spiel, of course, but he had too much native intelligence to swallow that after half an hour’s observation of the guests and flirtation with Lucrezia. Shortly before supper he cornered Hugh and me at the end of the front porch by the morning-glory vine and demanded the truth.
“All right, Hugh, what’s the idea?” he said. “You ought to know Mother can’t tell even the slightest fib without blinking. Who are los incognitos? They’re not really from California, are they.”
“No,” said Hugh, abandoning professional responsibility in a fit of exhaustion, “they’re not. South America.”
“Where the nuts come from?” said Hal mischievously. “I thought it was something like that. What’s it all about? There’s got to be a good story here.”
“Try telling him you respect his good sense and discretion, but you’re sworn to secrecy, et cetera, et cetera, and will explain later,” I suggested.
“Oh, so Ann’s in on it too? Come on, Ann, you tell me.”
“Ann isn’t in on anything; Ann is merely having a fascinating time looking on. Ask Hugh.”
“I am asking him.”
“I’ve already told you more than I’m supposed to. I’m not going to say any more right now, so you needn’t ask—and don’t go poking around trying to find out, either. All that matters is that nobody’s supposed to know they’re staying here, let alone where they came from, so not a word about them to anyone outside the house till I tell you it’s all right. I hope I can trust you, Hal.”
“I thought the whole neighborhood knew they were here,” said Hal, who had already been talking to Bridget.
“Yes, well, they don’t know why,” said Hugh rather lamely.
Alas for the perfect seclusion and anonymity he had promised his senior partners at Makepeace and Caulfield!
Hal had to be satisfied with this, so he went and fetched his guitar from upstairs to serenade Lucrezia under the big maple till supper. The two secretaries were occupying Hal’s room, and there was a bit of a contretemps when they answered his knock, as their reaction to the sight of his uniform was distinctly different from Lucrezia’s. It transpired that the Macamian rebels also wore gray.
When this little incident had been diffused Hugh gave the middle-aged secretary the rest of Aunt Mary’s headache powders, remarking rather acidly to me that they would have been necessary anyway to fortify a nervous man against Hal’s performance on the guitar. I thought that was a little unjust, as Hal really plays and sings rather well, but it wasn’t the occasion to argue the point.
Lucrezia had changed for supper, into an enchanting concoction of pale yellow ruffles, and she sat on the bench under the big maple in the back yard toying with a painted fan and listening with manifest enjoyment to Hal’s serenading. The elderly couple next door also came out and settled themselves at the nearer end of their front porch to listen, and several neighborhood children came and hung on the gate, and the deposed President of Macamia, seated in a wicker chair on the lawn full in the light streaming from the dining-room windows to enjoy the music, could hardly have been a more conspicuous figure.
The serenade was ended by the announcement of supper, a meal at which Hal, the president’s family, and my humble self enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Bridget appreciated the entertainment she received while waiting on table to a certain degree, but I think she was getting tired of the elaborate courses Aunt Mary felt it was necessary to serve to diplomatic guests.
The rest of the night I regret I can only relate at second hand. With his own room occupied Hal slept on the library sofa, and at about four o’clock he rolled off it in his sleep and landed with a resounding thud. A moment later Uncle Robert and the middle-aged secretary encountered each other in the upstairs hall, both armed with revolvers, and it is solely the Lord’s mercy that they also met in the dim light from the window on the landing and each saw that the man opposite him was wearing pajamas in time to refrain from discharging his weapon at him.
Monday morning Hugh thought he was in the clear, once he had seen Hal safely out of the house and on the train for Lexington. On the strength of this he entered the office of Makepeace and Caulfield with almost a spring in his step, with the end of the ordeal in sight. They expected to hear from Tim Kelleher before noon.
At ten o’clock a note was delivered. It said the Congressman had not returned to Washington when expected, that Kelleher was trying other avenues, and they should hear from him again shortly.
Hugh’s reaction to this was to dash out and send a telegram ahead of Hal to Lexington which read ‘Remember absolutely no noise STOP Hugh,’ which was a bit obscure, but he thought ‘absolute silence’ might excite curiosity. He returned to the office, and after a slightly tense conference with his partners, agreed that he would not yet inform his parents there had been a hitch. It would only add to their anxieties; and if the matter was settled by the end of the day they need never know the difference anyway.
Hugh then betook himself to his desk, and tried to settle down to some routine work, but spent most of the next hour and a half vividly imagining the lively and anecdotal conversations Hal might be having with perfect strangers on the train.
When the telephone on his desk rang, both Mr. Makepeaces were into Hugh’s office without knocking almost before he had the receiver off its cradle (to the undisguised astonishment of the clerks and stenographer). It was Uncle Robert, sounding as near to panicked as Hugh had ever heard him. A man who wouldn’t give his name had just telephoned the house and asked to speak to Señor Garcia. “Bridget answered the telephone,” he said, “and though she doesn’t know the—the party in question’s identity, she had gained the impression that no one was supposed to know he was here, and so she said there was no such person at this house. The man insisted there must be, that there was some mistake, but Bridget told him in no uncertain terms that if there was any mistake he’d made it. She was really quite marvelous; I heard the end of it standing next to her. But Hugh—what does this mean? Someone has evidently found out the—er, location of the party. Is the house watched, do you think? Should we attempt to—remove anything?”
“No,” said Hugh, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief , “not yet. I’m going to try to get in touch with Kelleher. Keep an eye out, and if you see any suspicious characters hanging around, send Bridget out to find a policeman and have him inquire what they’re doing there—with no reference to your guests, you understand. Yes. All right.”
He hung up. “Something’s leaked out,” he said to his now visibly tense partners. “Whatever Kelleher’s tried must have tipped them off. I can’t understand why in the world he would have let it out about the party being at our house, though. Can we locate him?”
“We can try his hotel. I’m afraid there’s a great chance he won’t be there, however,” said the younger Mr. Makepeace.
The telephone rang and Hugh snatched at it. It was Tim Kelleher.
“Caulfield, what in the world’s going on? I finally got a word with someone in the right department with a very busy schedule, and persuaded him to telephone your home and speak directly to Señor Garcia and arrange an official meeting. He rang up and was told there’s no such person. Now I’ve just had an angry call asking me what kind of tricks I’m playing, and do I think I can waste the department’s time with this kind of foolishness? The whole Macamia deal’s in danger.”
“Tell him to call again!” said Hugh vehemently; “give me five minutes to call ahead, and then call again and ask for my father this time, and make it clear to him who it is. My father, do you understand, Robert Caulfield. She can’t say he isn’t there.”
“She?” demanded Tim Kelleher.
But Hugh had hung up.
That evening after supper I strolled over to the Caulfields’ again. I found Hugh, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Robert all sitting on the front porch in the half-dark, looking as wrung-out as if they had been doing hard labor on a ninety-degree summer’s day (though a nicer and milder day in early June you couldn’t imagine). There were no lights upstairs, and no voices coming from the sitting-room or yard.
“Have your guests gone?” I said innocently.
“Yes…oh, yes, they’ve…gone,” said Uncle Robert.
I could see at a glance that neither he nor Aunt Mary were fit for conversation, so I went up on the porch and seated myself in a wicker chair on the other side of Hugh and peremptorily reminded him of his promise to tell all. He had promised, and Hugh is always as good as his word, and so he told me all of the foregoing story from the beginning.
“Kelleher convinced Mr.—a person in authority to try the telephone again, and he got Father this time and successfully established his identity. He spoke a few minutes with President Segundado, and arranged an official meeting with others involved. The meeting took place this afternoon, and I believe they arrived at an agreement, or at least started on the way to one. The arrangements included a dinner invitation for the President’s family, and when the carriage came for the ladies their luggage was also transferred to a good hotel, and they’re installed there with some capable detectives in attendance. Tomorrow it will be announced to the press that the President has arrived and is in negotiations with our government. Makepeace and Caulfield’s role in it won’t be mentioned, of course.”
“That seems rather a shame. Why didn’t you insist on public credit? Don’t you want the glory that will be attached to it?”
“I do not,” said Hugh. “I don’t want Tim Kelleher or any like him to get the idea that we are in the habit of seeking glory, or that we are equipped to handle the sort of cases that confer it.”
A telegraph boy on a bicycle slid to a stop at the gate, and came up the walk with a yellow envelope in his hand. “Telegram for Mr. Hugh Caulfield.”
“However did they carry on revolutions before the invention of the telephone and telegraph, I wonder?” I said.
Hugh ignored the remark. He opened the telegram and read it. Its message was laconic: ‘What do you think I am STOP Hal.’
“Any answer?” inquired the telegraph boy.
“No,” said Hugh, “no answer.”
“Well, at least you can put it down as a professional success,” I said, smiling a little and leaning back in my chair.
“I wonder,” said Hugh. “We delivered him alive, true. But I promised them practically invisibility, and I don’t think there’s anyone within a half-mile radius of this house who doesn’t know all about those foreign people staying with the Caulfields. I feel as if I spent the entire weekend trying to stuff a genie back into a bottle.”
He added ruefully, “I’m not sure whether I did too good of a job convincing President Segundado that he was in absolutely no danger here, or if I severely underestimated what a perilous place this household can be.”
“That, definitely,” I said. “A woman wouldn’t have made that mistake. A man may think a quiet suburban neighborhood is a haven of peace and seclusion, but a woman knows it’s a more difficult place to hide or to escape than a South American republic in the throes of revolution.”
A little behind-the-scenes:
This story was a product of my inventing my own flash fiction prompt system. I wanted something a little less soulless and a little more suited to my home genres than the random prompt generators and prompt lists you can find online. So I devised a system where I wrote down a bunch of book and movie titles and author names on slips of paper and drew three—movie + author + book—and then tried to come up with a story combining elements pulled from each one. I’ve gotten some interesting results so far—a few flash pieces, a couple that developed into conventional short fiction, and a few outlines still waiting to be written.
The prompt for “The President Comes to Stay” came out as “Grace S. Richmond + The Prisoner of Zenda + That Darn Cat! (1966).” What I got from that was “family life circa 1900-1910 + hiding a public figure + a comedy set in a residential neighborhood.”
I didn’t want to follow the Zenda prompt too closely by making it Ruritanian, and as soon as I’d decided that, the early-1900s setting suggested a South American banana-republic background. Of course from then on, the whole idea was drenched in the influence of longtime favorite O. Henry (the originator of the term “banana republic,” by the way), with memories circling around in the back of my head of some of the lively diplomatic machinations I remembered reading about in David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas many years ago. That’s the thing about stories written from prompts: the best results happen when the original ingredients spark trains of thought that lead to something else, and something else, and the final result ends up being something that you might never guess the original prompt from just by reading it.
As you can see, it also ended up emphatically not flash fiction. But who cares?
Thanks for the fun read!