by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Writer
It happens in the best of families. It might even happen in yours. As a concerned parent who wants their child to succeed in the highly competitive world of actuarial dentistry, you insist that they complete all of their third grade History of Anti-fascist Oppression homework. What do you do when they tell you that isn’t a class they take, and, honestly, they’re not sure it’s even taught at their school, and keep playing Angry Crustaceans: Under the Shell?
If you’re a typical parent, you threaten to take away their game. If you’re Tom Hohoholearthmann, you threaten to take away their liberty.
One lazy Wednesday evening (it got out of the wrong side of the bed and just didn’t feel motivated to do anything that night), Hohoholearthmann shouted at his daughter, Candeleria, “If you don’t put that game away and do your homework now, I’ll have you deported!”
When his girl child rolled her eyes and whined, “Daaaaaaad!”, Hohoholearthmann responded, “Don’t give me no lip. You think they have Angry Estonians, or whatever the ferk the game you’re playing is called, in Guatemala, or wherever the ferk the Immigration Corralling and Expulsing Service will send you? Or, if it comes to that, electricity?”
As a matter of fact, Guatemala does have teh internets, so people in that country can play online games. But to point that out would risk deportation, so let’s forget I mentioned it and move on.
For most children, the threat of being sent to a random foreign country they had never been to would be enough to ensure compliance with the wishes of their parents. However, some children will respond, “Aww, can’t I play for just another half hour? I’ll do my homework then e promise!” or “But I was born here! I’m a citizen of the United States of Vesampucceri by birth! You have no legal basis on which to deport me!”
Hohoholearthmann has a method of dealing with that, too. He will force the errant youth to watch videos of children in cages while explaining: “We don’t have the resources to deport everybody we would like to deport all at once. We might have to house you in a cage for a few months. Probably no longer than a couple of years. All of a sudden, homework doesn’t look so bad, does it?”
Hohoholearthmann has been tapped (gently because he startles easily and there is no way to make finger splints fashionable) to be the border czar in the incoming administration of Ronald McDruhitmumpf. Border czar? Isn’t that the position that Reduhblicans falsely accused McDruhitmumpf’s rival Kamala Harristweedfashin of being? Shh! Do you want to be deported?
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to him, that’s just the way Tom talks,” remarked his wife Eliza Hohoholearthmann. “If I had a dollar for every time he said to me, ‘Eliza, if you don’t have dinner on the table on time tonight, I’ll have you deported!’ or ‘Dammit, Eliza that’s the fifth headache you’ve had this week! If we do not have sexual relations by Sunday, I swear to Gord I’ll have you deported!’, by now I would have enough money to afford a good divorce attorney – really topnotch!” She sighed wistfully and added: “But I’m still here…”
Domestic bliss is by no means Hohoholearthmann’s only use of the tactic. Malachai Yoohoofooferaw, his co-worker at Dynamic Dynamo, Inc., stated, “Tom would always tell me that if our reports had too many spelling mistakes or anybody asked too many disruptive questions in meetings, he would have the responsible parties deported. You can imagine how annoying this was for me – I was his boss! Look us up on the org chart if you don’t believe me!”
Hohoholearthmann also tried using the tactic on me, claiming that if I wrote something unflattering about him I could find myself on a “one-way, permanent involuntary international relocation.” I don’t think he can do that. I mean, sure, some people could look at what I have written and say that it was critical of him, but, if considered from his point of view, he almost comes across as heroic. If you don’t think about it too hard.
But, uhh, if the next People beat article is written by Eve Herringbonecollar, readers will know why!