The Discount Dictator

Mack Hall


The Discount Dictator

His Excellency the President
Presidential Palace
Cairo
Egypt

Alternative address:

The Kloisters Ski Resort and EuroHooters
Switzerland

Dear President (or ex-president) Mubarak:

I understand that you are considering a career change. I wish you to know that I look forward to following your future endeavors with great interest.

In the meantime, I beg of you a favor. Since my Social Security has already been looted and the other retirement plan to which I have contributed for over thirty years is in trouble, I am looking for secure employment. Therefore, old pal, I wonder if you would give me a job reference so that I too could be one of the many inept dictators subsidized by the American taxpayer. Perhaps I could get back some of the Social Security and retirement I paid in.

My fitness for the job of dictator is demonstrated by my love of indolence and luxury. If the State Department hires me I promise that I will detail all the work to my pals regardless of their fitness for any sort of honest work, and will give them maximum freedom to accomplish their own personal and career goals by frequently absenting myself to London to be fitted for Bond Street suits. I will also ski in Switzerland (where you and I can get together and share laughs about the hard working Americans and Egyptians we’ve swindled), vacation in Viet-Nam’s expensive new coastal resorts, buy a new yacht in Hong Kong, grouse-shoot in Scotland, and hunt for other game with the prime minister of Italy.

At no time will I do anything for the Americans who will support me in the grand style to which I wish to be accustomed. Indeed, I will always criticize America, trash democracy, and blame everything on Israel.

I realize that, partly because America has exhausted its national wealth in supporting thugs…um…statesmen like you, the nation is broke. Thus, I will practice economy as a discount dictator for the 21st century. I will make do with being given only one international bank to use as my personal account. Further, the local airstrip next to the county maintenance barn is quite small, so the only airplane I will require will be a neat little DeHavilland Twin Otter from Canada, eh. Naturally I will require three full crews and a complete ground staff on duty at all times. They will have rather more training in actually landing aircraft safely than some of your co-religionists. I won’t need one of those new Euro Airbuses of my own, but I will expect one to be provided on standby at Houston within 24 hours’ notice.

Now for my personal household I will require a butler, chef (hey, Mayor Bloomberg of New York has three), manservant, housekeeper, and any number of housemaids, drivers, and groundskeepers. This might seem excessive, but as you well know, to us dictators humans come cheap. My security staff need be only a division or so of former SAS and French Legionnaires, fitted with a few of those new English tanks, a squadron or so of Harriers, and whatever other equipage you might recommend.

Well, Mubby old boy, I hope you don’t end with your head being cut off when the Peace-Loving Brotherhood take over Egypt, but, hey, that’s a chance we all take, right? When you’re in that great Kaaba in the sky with your 72 vermins you can look down on the masses of Egyptians being oppressed by sorrier and meaner wretches…um…democratically-elected leaders than you ever were and have the last laugh.

Your loyal and loving bff until and unless it becomes necessary to sacrifice you to a mob,

Maximus I, Comrade and Eternal President and Beloved of the Workers and Peasants, and, Like, Y’know, Stuff. His Mark: X

-30-