With apologies to Shirley Jackson.
The crew had gathered all their supplies, packed the van, and made their way to the White House through early morning fog on a cold January morning. They were entrusted with cleaning the historic building after Trump had abruptly left the premises, deciding to spend his administration’s final days focusing on his 2024 campaign and his short game at Mar-a-Lago.
When they pulled into the driveway, the driver glanced into a nearby window to see someone staring right back out at him. He gasped.
“That, that looks like… Obama??"
They all saw the apparition. It was clearly the image of Barack Obama. The confused crew warily got out of the van. Obama just kept staring at them with a frozen smile on his face.
Once inside, they discovered it was just a cardboard cutout of Obama. A dick was drawn in Sharpie on his cheek. The words ERIC TRUMP WAS HERE appeared just below it.
They all decided this was sort of a self-own.
The crew made their way through the dark entrance hall. A cold wind passed through them, accompanied by the scent of perfume, which was quickly overwhelmed by the smell of something rotten. They paused, each of them worried about what they might find.
“Oh, it’s just an open bottle of Ivanka’s Eau De Parfum Spray,” the foreman said, flicking on the lights, “and a decomposing half-eaten can of Goya beans.”
When they entered the Oval Office, they discovered a message scrawled on the wall. COME HOME TRUMP, it read. The crew found additional messages throughout the White House…
TRUMP’S TRUE HOME
THE SPIRITS OF THIS HOUSE SAY TRUMP MUST STAY
HE WON IN A LANDSLIDE. IT WASN’T EVEN CLOSE
GIULIANI IS A MASTER STRATEGIST AND, FOR THE LAST TIME, HE WAS JUST TUCKING IN HIS SHIRT
YOU COULDN’T HANDLE WHAT COVFEFE REALLY MEANS
No matter how hard the crew scrubbed, they could not remove the bizarre graffiti. Some say that the words appear and disappear at random.
The new security team arrived to get set up and check the status of the security cameras. The chief of security sat down to look at how his office was left behind, scoffing at some of the outdated technology, and finding an old VHS with a sticky note on top that said VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK.
He cautiously inserted the tape into a VCR when a series of strange visuals began playing before settling on what appeared to be a gathering of Roger Stone, Bill Barr, Michael Flynn, and Steve Bannon. They sat in a circle at a table, conducting some sort of seance with MAGA hats on their heads, chanting “Hoax, hoax, hoax” over and over. Before the tape ended, the faint image of Jeffrey Epstein appeared hovering above the table before the screen went black.
After Biden finally took office, his team worked hard getting the White House back in order.
“I found another candy wrapper in the files," one aide exclaimed, "And this bill has a chocolate smudge that obscures one of the signatures for a nationwide vaccine purchase. We can’t get a replacement, he’s dead now.”
Another file was filled with thirty pages of the same words over and over again:
Executive time
Executive time
Executive time
Executive time…
Despite the difficult transition, President Biden was proud of how his administration had handled this difficult period in American history. When he settled in for bed, he placed his slippers under the box spring and felt them hit something. He hesitantly looked underneath and saw a large flat object that spanned nearly the length of the bed. With Jill’s help, they slowly lifted the mattress and uncovered a life-sized cardboard cutout of Vladimir Putin. A speech bubble was drawn by his mouth that read DONALD TRUMP WAS HERE.
The President and First Lady both agreed this was definitely a self-own.