MY INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT NIXON

By Madam Misty Merkel
The other day I was cleaning up my kitchen when I heard knocking at the door. I opened it and saw it was former President Richard M. Nixon. “Hello Madam Misty,” said the former president. “I was just in the area visiting one of my old Haunts when I decided to stop in and say hello.”

“Well, hello and come on in,” I said. “The place is a mess. I was just cleaning up the kitchen a little bit.”

“Don’t worry about it Madam Misty,” replied the President. “I visited Beethoven a few weeks ago and there is no worse housekeeper than a musician. All they care about is writing down notes and waving their arms around; pretending to be conducting an orchestra. Most musicians are bit nuts if you ask me.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked.

“No Madam Misty you see on earth I’m just an apparition so, I can’t drink or eat anything here. But, just wait until I get back to my own dimension. The food and drinks are just great there.”

“I take it that you must have gone to heaven and not the other place,” I said.

Nixon looked down at the ground for a moment as he seemed to be searching for his next words. “You see Madam Misty,” Nixon began,” Heaven and Hell are really not what you might think. Heaven and Hell are really just concepts of how you view the world around you. You understand that after you pass over you are judged for your deeds and misdeeds in this life and are rewarded in kind. The thing is there is no absolute great place called Heaven or another terrible place called Hell. In fact, we all live in a dormitory that has seven floors. The bottom floor is where people that are not very good go and the 7th floor is what you might call heaven, hence the name “7th Heaven.”

Then I said, “I always thought the name “7th Heaven” came from a TV show. What about people that are really bad? Do they live in the same dorm?”

“Not quite,” answered Nixon. “For example, I live on the 3rd floor. It is not the top floor so I don’t have as nice view. I can watch the pretty girls sunbathe on the lawn out my window that is, if I were interested in watching pretty girls. My wife Pat would frown on my doing such a thing. No, I just take my dog Checkers for a walk everyday. But, getting back to the dorm structure you see it was designed by Chairman Mao. It seems that he did such a great job of organizing China into a world class superpower that he was given the job of designing heaven. He of course created the dormitory system with the best people living on the top floor and the very worst of society living in the basement.

I live on the 3rd floor which is not 7th Heaven however, it is not the basement. I’m hoping that my old boss and running mate President Eisenhower can use his clout to eventually move me up to the 7th floor where he is staying. I’ve heard they have a great piano bar there and Karen Carpenter performs there every day. My, she always had the voice of an angel.”

“So, what about the basement?” I asked. “What kind of people are down there?”

“Well, Madam Misty you really don’t want to go down to the basement. Unfortunately, that is where the laundry room is located. People on the top couple of floors have lots of perks like pickup laundry service. Down where I’m at you have to do your own which means every week you have to trudge down to the basement for a few hours. Last week Hitler and Mussolini grabbed my favorite boxer shorts and played “keep away” with me. They never did give them back and they were a gift from Kissinger. They were genuine silk with red, white and, blue vertical stripes on them. They had a big red heart on the backside. He got them made special just for me in Taiwan before we kicked them out of the U.N. and invited in mainland China. I tried to get my boxer shorts back by meeting with my floor’s Resident Assistant (RA) but, he said he could not really do anything about the rowdies down in the basement. I guess I’m going to have to wash my boxer shorts in my bathroom sink from now on. I’d like to get General Patton to go down and kick the behinds of Hitler and Mussolini but, General Patton is stuck in limbo on the elevator for one thousand years. I guess he slapped some angel when he first got to the dorm.”

President Nixon looked at his watch and said,” I see it’s getting late and time for me to go. Hope to see you again soon Madam Misty and, by the way, Elvis says ’Hi’.” The president got up and made his way out the door.

“Goodbye Mr. President,” I said, “and say hello to Elvis for me when you see him.”