Aboard My Train Of Thought, Scott C. Endsley [reading comprehension books .TXT] 📗

I can't see for beans anymore! I used to be quite a bookworm; before long I'm going to have to resort to books-on-tape..."

"I always knew you were an old tapeworm, Professor," Edith cleverly retorted.

Giles came back with, "It's a bleedin' shame when you get old how everything falls apart. Just last Friday when you took me to get that colonoscopy done, when I had that little bout with colitis, I warned the doctor that he make sure he knew which canal to shove that 'colitis-scope' in, cause when I don't have me dentures on, I look the same on both ends!" he chortled. "Now, what is my wonderful president up to?... Wanting to put us back on the gold standard heh? Says it'll put trillions back into the national debt. Hmm...Well, in my day people knew not to borrow what they couldn't pay back! It's a bloody shame it is!!!!!" Giles complained as he pounded on the table.

"Your blood pressure, Giles!" Edith warned. "Have you taken your pills yet?"

"Oh, ah.....yes yes!" He answered while slipping them in his pocket. "When is that son of mine gonna bring that car home?!!"

"What?!!!" Edith gasped, puzzled.

"Let me see this phone, I've had enough of this. I'm gonna call the police.... Well blast, the damn thing won't dial!....Well... Yes Operator, this bloody telephone system of yours is giving me all sorts of hell!!!"

"What, you didn't get any ring?" The operator yawned.

"...Well, we did get a couple of inches yesterday..." Giles informed her while holding a finger in his other ear.

"What on Earth are you doing, Giles?" Edith interrupted.

"Shhhh!!!!!Yes Operator, get me the police! Yes, I'm in Santa Barbara....... Hello, Police!? I want to report my son. He stole my car again!!"

"Ok, Ok... Did he have a weapon?" The officer quizzed.

Professor Endicotsley squinted his aged eyes as if it was going to help him listen better. "Did he have a whippin'? Well no, but he's gonna get one hell of a big one when he gets home!"

Edith snatched the phone from his grip and quickly hung it up. "Giles, your son is grown up, married, and has children now. He lives in L.A., remember?"

The Professor was swiftly taken aback and went back to the paper, "Well, ..yes ..uh, what's this? President Hipwing's going to be on Barry King Live, tonight?.....I've got to see this! Edie, don't let me forget! Eight o'clock tonight, channel 3!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Episode 2)
With only a fraction of a minute to go until air time, I, the newly crowned president, was seated in the television studio after a lengthy security check. Barry King had just come out of the men's room, next to the studio entrance, and was immediately sprawled out against the wall, and frisked.

"What the...what's going on here!?"

"Sorry, Mr. King, just a routine security check. You can go ahead and have a seat now, sir," the secret service agent matter-of-factly gestured.

"15 seconds 'til showtime, Barry!" the producer shouted.

"Yeah, yeah, okay... So, how does it feel to be president? I suppose you really enjoy all this special treatment, huh?" Mr. King smirked at me.

"Well, I, uh..."

"10 seconds, Barry!"

"What the...?!" Barry snapped. "Miss Fillmore, you forgot to powder my nose! You know I don't like the spot reflecting off my nose!"

"Too late, Barry, " the producer announced as the music began."

"Okay," Barry whispered to me in his lethal garlic breath, "When all the pretty happy music stuff is over, look real excited about bein' here, and I'll do the same.......Okay, here we go!... Good evening, everyone! It's been said he may be the most significant president since Abraham Lincoln, after liberating this country from the clutches of tyranny and back into the arms of liberty, and he's here with us tonight in his first televised interview since taking office! Mr. President, it's a VERY big pleasure and privilege having you here tonight."

"Thank you, Barry, it's a pleas..."

"So, you got a book out," Barry interrupted.

"Yeah, well, I..."

"Let's talk about it... Aboard My Plane of Thought... any reason why it's YOUR thought?... I mean, why not somebody else's?" Barry asked.

"Well, Barry, I really didn't want to focus on the book tonight. You see..."

"Why not, it's a great book?.... Don't be so modest, boy...Yuck Yuck," he snickered.

"Well, uh..."

"The book is called, Aboard My Plane of Thought and will be...."

"Train, Barry."I corrected.

"Oh, and I almost missed it. Yuck! Yuck!.. Little joke there...We'll be back with the interview and your calls and questions after these messages. Don't go away...."

"Mr. King, uh," I whispered.

"Shhh, smile, the music's still playing.....Oh, we're off?" Barry asked. "All right Miss Fillmore, what's your excuse for not powdering my nose!?"

"Mr. King, I can explain! You see...."

"Young lady, you're fired! And I'll see to it that you'll never get another nose job in this city again! And if you want your severance pay, you better do your job properly before you leave!"

"Yes sir, yes sir...right away, sir."

Little did Barry know, that when she was supposed to be administering makeup to his nose, she applied grease paint instead, in revenge. Nobody said a word.

"Mr King, I..."

"Shhhh... don't bother me son, I'm reading the funnies..." Mr. King scolded me while flipping through The New York Times as he finished guzzling something down out of a tall frosty beer mug, then gleamed, "more Ovaltine please!!!"

"Sorry Barry, 4 seconds!"

Growling a bit, he tossed the mug behind himself out of sight, and regained his constraint as the stupid happy-crappy music once again began. "He's got a best seller out there, Ladies and Gentlemen. I'm speaking, of course, of the President, Clyde P. Hipwing, himself. and the book is called Aboard the Train I Bought. ... Ah, the hell with the interview, lets take a phone call... Hello, Stockholm, Sweden, you're on the air."

"Yah... Hallo... I'd like der ask der president about der....."

"WHAT'S THE QUESTION!!!??" Barry hollered.

"Hallo... yah, der question..." (BAM!!!) Before he could finish, King un-hesitantly slammed his finger on the disconnect so as to deface the touch pad then inquired, "So, Mr. President, you think you'll do a follow-up?!"

"Follow-up?" I asked, puzzled.

"Your book!"

"Oh, the book....Well, I wish...."

"Did you really meet Lorraine Bobbit?"

"Huh?"

"Well, in your book, you said you spent the night with her at the Lorraine Bobbit Correctional Center!" Barry nudged.

"No, Barry! That was just a dream I mentioned in the last..."

"And a very interesting dream at that...." Barry added with the emphasis in his eyebrows. "So, I hope you're taking your meds these days, like a good boy. We wouldn't want our president flipping out on us...yuck, yuck!"

"Barry, I've been patient all evening here, and I'd like to ask YOU just one question," I smiled.

"Shoot....I'm game," he shrugged.

"Why do you wear those suspenders?"

"Well, I don't know," Barry blushed... "guess to hold my trousers up. Why?"

"Well, Barry....Why don't you, from now on, wear a pair around your head, fixed to your jaws, to hold your mouth shut long enough to let someone else speak?"

My sarcastic curve ball failed in its attempt to toss him out of his likable yet asinine television host facade. "What a wit!... Our guest tonight has been the one and only Clyde P. Hipwing, and his best selling book...."

"Oh, please...."

"Of course Insane I'm Not... little joke there... Mr. President, good luck and thanks for being on the show!..." Barry grinned, shaking my arm from its socket and spraining my shoulder while he was at it. "It's our Author's Night, Ladies and Gentlemen, stay tuned as our next guest, Dr. Rudolf Bogler tells us about his self-help best selling paperback, 'Don't Bother Buying This Book You Big Stupid Baby, Just Grow up And Get Over It!!!' Don't go away!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Episode 3)
Once aboard Air Force 1 on the way back to Washington, I fell into a deep dismal depression. Since taking office, and lifting the country out of the horrors of totalitarianism, there emerged an even wider division in the House and Senate. The Republicans were moving farther to the right and the Democrats (what were left of them), to the extreme left.

I couldn't seem to get anything passed legislatively, as no one seemed to have confidence in my policies; much less my administration. Even conservative radio talk show host Flush Limbo was having a heyday. There was a growing discontent among the nation's vast population, as anarchy was beginning to brew in some states. Doing exactly opposite of what I set out to do in the beginning, I found himself expanding an already big government just to keep the country together.

After some tossing and turning later that night, I finally fell into the sea of forgetfulness, drowning in a sleep I had rarely enjoyed since taking office, though I had a rather bizarre dream:

I found myself embodied as the son of Ivan The Terrible, in ancient Russia. My father Ivan and I got into an enormous argument. Suddenly he pulled out of the floor a huge two-by-four, and with full force threw it in my direction, piercing my stomach and out of my back. He was so enraged that he stormed out and went into town to shoot some pool, not knowing what he had done.

As I lay there dying, everyone in the castle tried everything to humor me till my father came home. They brought in folk dancers, singing quartets and jesters, but nothing distracted me from the monstrous board sticking through me.

Finally, Father Ivan returned home and saw what he had done, felt remorse, and immediately loaded me aboard the Royal Ambulance. During the mad excursion through the streets of Moscow, the back door flew open and the stretcher I was laying on slipped out, though it had a rope attached to the back of the ambulance. Dreaming I was being flipped and dragged in agony, I woke up in dire pain. "What is it?!?!"

"Mr. President.... it's 8:05 AM, Sir...... You have an official visitor..... Time to get up, Sir."

"But, it's Saturday..... I don't have any meetings on Saturdays.... It's my writing day!" I whined like a child looking forward to not going to school.

I got out of my favorite Tweety-Bird pajamas and dressed hurriedly in anticipation of who it was I was to meet. I crept down the hall and waved at the saluting guard standing in front of the oval office door, then entered. At first glance I didn't recognize the individual sitting in my oval office chair until I was quickly reminded by his cool countenance.

"Say man, what's up?" Ralph smiled.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Episode 4)
Later that same morning in Santa Barbara, "Edie, have I ever told you that I love you?" Professor Endicotsley winked at the lady who without knowing earned his infatuation.
"Why no, dear Giles.....Why?" She blushed and leaned closer.

"Just wanted to make sure, that's all. Hee Hee," he teased. Edith presented him with a foul expression, as she pretended to swat a fly with the morning paper over his head.

"Well, well, well. Let's see what's happening in the worldly realm of politics on this very day," the Professor smirked, thumbing through the pages of the Saturday Morning addition of the Santa Barbara Bugle.

"I'm ready to take notes, Professor. Will there be any visual