Writing Prompts: You've just won the Presidential Election, but as President of the United States, you're constantly bored. You begin to do crazy things to get out of office, but every stupid decision you make seems to be the right one at the right time.

 I discovered an old Reddit account I had for posting stories and writing prompts was somehow still active and decided to raid it for some of the older stuff I wrote while trying to get better at writing.  I suppose this was a bit funnier eight years ago.  There isn't much but here is what there is...

People talk about the power of the presidency but it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. Sure it sounds great—become the most powerful man on the planet, head of state to the most greatest nation on Earth, change the destiny of millions with the stroke of a pen, etc. What no one tells you about are the meetings.

That’s what being President actually is—meetings. Every day, at all hours of the day or the night I can get called into a meeting at any time to discuss such items of major import as the migration patterns of northern caribou. Or to talk about how Senator Bob got caught again texting pictures of his junior assistant rising through the drawers at his congressional office. Occasionally I even get a fun one—some chum from college I haven’t seen in thirty years is now alleging something or another and how can we head it off before it hits the media…

BORING!

Even when it’s about me, all that means is even longer debriefs and additional grilling from congressional staffers representing the party and from cabinet members just itching to resign from their positions at the drop of a hat. Do you know how hard it is to get new people approved? Sometimes I wish I could quit the damn office myself, just to get away from the endless meetings!

I’m starting to think old Ricky had the right idea. Resign and keep the pension, the secret service, and all the other bennies while not dealing with the stupid meetings. Not sure what I could say to explain quitting though and I don’t think saying "I was bored!" is going to fly.

On the other hand, they kind of had to force Dick Nixon out—he didn’t actually resign until it became clear that they’d toss him out if he didn’t. I wonder if I could pull off the same thing: make them want me to leave then resign before they can make me quit? If nothing else the attempts should make life slightly more interesting for a while….

I suddenly notice the silence in the room and realize that I’ve been asked a question and they’re all waiting on me.

What was this meeting about again? Oh yeah, about redecorating the place. I don’t know why but evidentially every president has to leave their own stamp on the place by repainting it. I decide I really don’t care too much about it.

"Put it to a vote." I say.

The room assembled looks at me shocked. Only after they confirm that I actually meant to put it as a national referendum on live TV tomorrow night, do I remember that the redecorating meeting was yesterday when I was still nursing the hangover from Sunday night. Crap, what was this meeting about any way?

It’s only tomorrow when I’m seeing the words on my teleprompter that I figure out what the meeting should have been about, but at that point I’m past caring. I may be reading solemnly from the nice words my speech writing team worked up for me, but inside I’m practically dancing with glee. If I know anything about the American people it’s that they absolutely hate to have their shows interrupted and we managed to time it things so I’m going on just before they announce the finalists and we’re preempting the phone lines needed to vote so no one is going to be able to vote for their favorite pops stars to go on and be the next American Talent… It’s a perfect start to my campaign to abandon this boring post!

So imagine my surprise when the next day my cabinet gives me a standing ovation when I walk in for the day’s set of morning meetings. This is not the way I expected things to go…

"You unbelievable sonuvaich!"

"You brass plated clanking monkey! They must be the size of melons!"

"How did you know???" My team exclaims separately and all at once.

Apparently wording really is everything. Last night I put the American Space Program up to a vote, fully expecting the voters to try to shut it down. My brilliant idea was to deprive the pop idol worshipers the chance to vote for their favorites and thereby inspire their burning hatred to fuel my impeachment in public opinion ratings. Only I’d forgotten those reality shows were set up with fees per call, so people could vote for their favorites more than once, so long as they were willing to pay for the privilege. A Democracy this isn’t!

Only what I actually asked was: "Should Americans pay to fund NASA and the Space Program?"

All the geeks (nationally and otherwise) responded overwhelmingly with their own money to say that YES, yes we should.

As my science advisor shook my hand the man from NASA tackled me with a hug and tears running down his face, crying at me "You beautiful, beautiful man!"

Once he’d calmed down enough to be coherent again he informed me that NASA now had enough funding to last the next hundred years at double, even triple their usual expenditure. Even now as we speak they had guys running through the archives and pulling plans made back in the sixties and seventies and updating them for modern technology. With this new cash injection NASA expected to have several new space stations and colonies on both the Moon and Mars by the end of the decade.

As he was telling me all these things the man from the party arrived and was pumping my arm up and down in a vice while expounded on my unprecedented approval rate, while simultaneously cautioning me on not relying on "stunts" like this to boost my popularity because that kind of popularity rarely lasts. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him—or any of them really—the truth so I just agreed with him and seethed internally. I also had to put off my plans to disband the cabinet that afternoon because it would have been like kicking a puppy at this point with how flush with happiness everyone was.

Instead I called over to Hawaii and managed to get a hold of the smallest luau company on the islands. It took some doing but I managed to get him, his wife, their entire team and the entire staffing of his brother-in-law’s luau company to fly over on Air Force One. (We have more than one you know, to throw off terrorists and enemy nations as decoys. I just sent the spare one.) Unfortunately in order to convince them I was me and that me was serious I had to pull in the chief of staff and the head cook, the FBI, CIA, and several other assorted alphabet agencies.

That meant altering my plans significantly but I pressed on regardless. They got there that evening about three in the morning and by daylight they and their team had the White House lawn dug up and several large pigs roasting in the ground. Meanwhile those alphabet agencies I mentioned? They were building up an invite list.

I tried to make sure that every allied Muslim state got one of the invites but no one took it seriously so I eventually gave up. Instead I made plans with my head Secret Service guy to go on a trip. After I’d appointed a new Secret Service guy and demoted the last three guys we were on our way to Children’s Hospital for the day with a small pit stop to a costume store where I put on my disguise.

It was a very inebriated Krusty the Clown who showed up at the hospital to "entertain" the kids. Unfortunately nothing I did mattered. The damn kids loved me. I left with the cutest nurse I could find and took off in a drunken rage.

Deciding somehow that the problem with my costume was I needed a monkey, I raided the local universities for ones doing primate work and got one with those signing chimps and dismissed them in favor of a gorilla who could sign and returned to tour the hospital again with my new partner. The kids weren’t afraid at all! Not even when Kyoko the Gorilla picked up ailing Timmy Thompson and cradled him in her arms crooning something at a low volume. An interpreter for NBC later said that the gorilla was seen to be signing something about "my poor baby" as she tenderly held the lad and Fox countered that the gorilla was quoting a poem about someone named George as she held him.

Mmmm? Oh I have no idea what she was saying—I’m a president not an interpreter. All I know is they unanimously credited my antics with raising the spirits on the entire hospital and some kind of weird interaction with Kyoko’s slobbering and crying over the Thompson boy did something to kick start his immune system. He’s on the mend now and the hospital has been contacting the university for DNA samples to synthesize the component in hopes of a universal cure being found.

 By this point, having given the Secret Service the slip and managing to find myself in one of Boston’s many bars trying to enjoy a beer in relative peace. It didn’t last though, because even though I was able to convince everyone I was not the president, I was just an impersonator—everyone still wanted me to "do the bit" and kept bringing over new people to hear me. Everyone wanted their brothers and wives to see and hear the guy who does the best President impersonation they ever saw. I can’t tell you how many smartphones were pressed to my face with me saying random things into the voice piece.

Of course with that much commotion it didn’t take too long before the Secret Service showed up and everyone realized I was the real deal. Worked out okay I guess—my bar tab went away pretty quickly after that. I heard later that the stool has been dipped in bronze and a plaque now adorns the spot where the stool sat with my name on it. The worst part was someone had taped my game of pool with two of the locals and ESPN was using it as a special on how Not to get hustled. And here I just thought my game was bad because I was out of practice. At least they never caught me blowing at Beer Pong.

At any rate at that point my fun was over and the soon to be former head of the Secret Service was frog marching me to the helicopter to get me back to the White House. After I got back to the estate I fired the guy and went to check on the luau currently destroying the lawn. To my delight it was just about finished so I get on the phone and called up the entertainment and got a hold of some "special" guests.

Three rousing encores later the Insane Clown Posse were getting tired and Putin and I were working on our third cigar and dividing the free world between the two of us. There’s a special sort of irony involved in a game of Risk between two Presidents. Unfortunately for Putin he kept on losing—and I wasn’t even trying to cheat! I even offered best out of five but the poor guy suddenly had pressing business at home and had to leave after the second game. Funny how we never had any trouble with Russia after that.

I pretty much gave up trying to get fired by that point.

Three days later I was watching my miserable performance at beer pong on a very special edition of ESPN sports while seated around a table with George, Billy George, Barry and Jimmy while everyone laughed at me.

Billy shook my hand and clapped me by the neck while whispering so the others couldn’t hear, "It was a good try youngster—but nothing compared to my bit with the dress."