by Henry, ©2025
(Aug. 23, 2025) — The soothing song of “Forever” (2:18) is played while the house lights slowly dim and the curtain rises. The stage lights brighten, revealing the stage set as the Oval Office. An actor wearing a Halloween Trump mask sits behind the desk with masked cabinet members lined up behind him. The President is just finishing signing a document and commences to hand out pens by reaching down beside him with both hands and grabbing handfuls of pens and throwing them all over the stage nonstop for two full minutes while his cabinet applauds. From the upper right of the stage, Henry, wearing a cape, glides to the top of the desk.
Henry: “Stop the action! Stop this blatant capitalistic excess, this wanton display of wealth, these pens, symbols of bourgeois privilege, thrown helter-skelter to the winds of time. I say, ‘Stop it!’
“Think about it. One pen was used to sign the document, just one, yet thousands commemorate the occasion. Tokens of power.
“It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but it may also be said that the pen is mightier than the pen. That’s right; maybe the symbolism of pens flying through the air is but a metaphor of bigger things afoot.
“Stay with me now. These pens, where do they come from? My guess is, ‘Made in China’ by child laborers, or laborers not represented by an arbitrator of some kind in a worker’s paradise.
“Then again, maybe not. The point is, we just don’t know. But that’s not the point, now, is it?
“No, it is not. So, what is the point? The point is either the pens were paid for by Trump himself, which makes the whole operation tantamount to excessive bribery, or they were paid for by hard-earned taxpayers’ money, in which case our dollars were used as some sort of prop in a sick government pageantry.
“That’s right, folks, I’m talking about ‘Pen-Gate,’ a ‘gate’ far, far worse than Watergate or Travelgate.
“Welcome to the jungle, where the survival of the fittest wins. Imagine, if you will, public parks for public use, a place where little kiddies can play happily without getting pricked by a used needle and shortly thereafter dying of AIDS. Or how about a place where people can go without the fear of getting mugged? Let me ask you this: who thinks about the welfare of the muggers, huh? Why, the Democratic Party does, that’s who.
“And what about the teenagers: you know, the ones who carjack? Ever think about them? What about the young women who somehow enjoy kicking people, whenever they’re lying on the ground, in the head. How are they supposed to get their kicks?
“See, it starts out innocently enough and then, all of a sudden, we’re mired in another ‘gate.’ We have Panama Gate’ and ‘Ukraine pay off Congress gate,’ and too many others to mention.
“We’re sinking in ‘gates,’ I tell you. Heck, before we know it, we’ll be having squeals of ‘gates.’ Another ‘this’ and then ‘that-gate,’ ad infinitum. And all because people lie and cheat, as a Dem does.
“But I see I’m losing my audience so I’ll share with you a slice of philosophy. One thing that lottery hopefuls have in common — well, most of them — is that they say, ‘When I win, I’ll get straight.’
“Sounds good, doesn’t it? For sure. But there’s a way to win without actually winning and this is how you do it: use your brain to fool your body into believing you won the lottery by getting ‘straight’ without the millions. That’s the trick; works every time and there’s no downside.
“Thank you for attending our ‘tongue-in-cheek’ play. Take Care.”
As the stage lights dim the curtain lowers while the house lights brighten to the music of “The Magnificent Seven, Main Theme” (3:35).
FINI