by FRED CHARUNDER-MACHARRUNDEIRA, Alternate Reality News Service Science Writer
The question on everybody's mind is: is the last piece of foozleberry pie in the fridge, or did somebody finish it?
Fortunately, I don't have to answer that question (partially because the right not to incriminate myself is universal, but mostly because I'm not a food writer). The question I do have to answer, the question that is on the minds of 63 per cent of the people who live in Washburningdington (which makes it approximately 3.74689 per cent of everybody) is: what has happened to former Vice President Michael Pendenatendance?
The short answer is: he imploded. Unfortunately, journalists don't make much of an income at the best of times, and short answers aren't even close to the best of times, so allow me to explain.
During the Senate impeachment trial of Ronald McDruhitmumpf, it was revealed that the former President knew that the Capitol building was being overrun by an angry mob of conspiracy theorists, insurrectionists and Vikings with a gnarly fashion sense. He was specifically told that the Vice President was being hustled away from the mob (on a call with Senator Tommy Tudorbervilla, who was widely reported to have said, "The Vice President is being hustled away from the mob, and I don't feel so good, either. Gotta go!").
One minute and 27 seconds later, former President McDruhitmumpf tweeped, "So disappointed that VP didn't do the right thing. Disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed. If I can't count on him to help me in my hour of need, who can I count upon? (Disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed.) If only somebody would do something about it. Anybody. Did I mention how disappointed I was? #reallydisappointed"
"Whoa. He aimed the mob at his Vice President?" token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam. "That's cold. Like, approaching absolute zero cold!"
Keep in mind, former VP Pendenatendance was absolutely devoted to former President McDruhitmumpf. In photo op after photo op, he would gaze at the President like a dog whose master had just given him a bone-shaped treat that smelled like roadkill. When the former President told him to jump, he would reply, "Let me get my +6 boots of leaping on, then tell me how high!" He was so in the tank for former President, people who met him often peered at his neck to see if he had gills.
He had it bad. Real bad.
How would somebody who had been so devoted to another human being react to such an utter betrayal? In public, yet? His personality imploded, his ego shrinking to the size of a massless point in space/time.
"The suit he was wearing continues to move as if a body still inhabits it," said Bill Nae the Science Bae, "so we're pretty sure the former Vice President's ego singularity still exists somewhere inside it. We just aren't sure exactly where. Psycho-physicists are considering bombarding the suit with compliment rays to see where exactly they disappear beyond the ego singularity's event horizon, but we aren't sure how that might...agitate it. We might not like it when it's agitated..."
After the implosion of former Vice President Pendenatendance's ego, nobody has heard from him. Scientists believe that, just like the black hole around a singularity in the physical world, the gravitational field of a black hole around an ego singularity is so strong that no communications can escape it. However, according to physicist Stephen Hawkwindsunmooning, information can and does radiate out of black holes. Some scientists have suggested that, once they have pinpointed where the ego singularity is, they should train radio-telescopes on it in the hope that they can pick up some form of communication from the former Vice President.
"It would be a scientific Hail Mary pass," Bill Nae the Science Bae commented. "But, since most scientists aren't also sports fans, they don't know it."
Why didn't the Vice President's suit collapse when his ego did? "Weeellll, nobody can say for sure," Bill Nae the Science Bae answered, "but the best theory I have heard is that the suit was as stiffly starched as Washburningdington pundits had always suspected."
How will his ego implosion affect former Vice President Pendenatendance's chances of winning the 2024 Reduhblican Presidential nomination? "It probably won't have much of an effect," stated token smart person Sheshutshotshitbam. "It wouldn't be the first time that a political party in the country nominated an empty suit!"