Dangerous Cross Connection

Khaleej Times Online >> News >> OPINION
A dangerous cross-connection to the White House
BY S. RAGHUNATH

5 December 2005

RECENTLY, a telephone subscriber in the United States who dialled his laundry got connected instead to the top-secret telephone of President Bush. Here it goes:

“Hello there, Snow White Laundromat? Look, this is utterly outrageous and I am certainly not going to take it lying down.  A few days ago, I sent you four shirts and three trousers to be dry-cleaned and I’ve got them back minus all the buttons and fly zippers.  What kind of a laundry service are you running anyway?”

“I ‘m sorry, sir but you’ve got the wrong number.  This is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and used to alert him to an imminent Russian nuclear missile attack and the total annihilation of the United States and the free world.  I request you most urgently to hang up and try dialling the correct number of the Snow White Laundromat.”

“Okay, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and I’m a man from Mars.  Last week, I sent you my corduroy Levi’s to be stonewashed and darned and I’ve got them back minus the ‘I Love America’ patch on the bum.  I tell you, I’ve never seen a lousier laundry service in my life.”

“I repeat most urgently, sir, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and blocking it causes a grave national security alert and US forces World-wide being put in the highest state of readiness to launch an all-out thermo-nuclear strike.  I request you to hang up immediately.”

“Look, you can’t brazenly rip off my buttons and fly zippers and then try to fob me off with this emergency hotline scrambler malarkey.  A fortnight ago, I sent you my white dressing gown to be dyed saffron and pressed.  I was thinking of giving up the senior vice-presidency of the Microsoft Corporation and hitting the road with the Hare Krishna guys.  You still haven’t delivered my saffron gown and my ardour for nirvana and exotic Oriental has cooled off.  I tell you, I’ve got a good mind to take my custom elsewhere.”

“I repeat most urgently, sir, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the President and why even now, Russian SS-22 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles might be on their way and with you blocking the hotline, they might well zap us.”

“No, they won’t — not a country with a laundry that can’t wash its customers’ clothes well. Listen, I’ve got another complaint.  You advertise, ‘We wash your things in high-speed, automatic, computer-controlled machines. Well, last week, as I was driving alone Lake Chicago, I swear I saw your workmen beating clothes on a rock and washing and rinsing them in a cesspool by the lake.  I ask you, is your advertising fair?  Another thing, your starching…”

“I repeat, sir, this is the emergency hotline scrambler telephone line to the Oval office and to convince you-though this might cost me my job-I’ll put the President himself on the line.”

“Hello, this is the President. Don’t tell me that the Russians have got a drop on us?”

“Mmm…  you do sound like ol’ man Georgie Bush.  For heaven’s sake, what are you doing working in the lousy Snow White Laundromat?”
S. Raghunath is a writer based in Bangalore, India

 

Posted in Humor.