Few people outside international banking’s notorious money-laundering circle know that Bags O’Booty is Mitt’s choice for Director of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving if the laugh-a-minute cop impersonator wins the presidency this November. Here at The MacDougal Post, most of our staff wanted to find out why.
The rest of us are on suicide watch over the upcoming election, and don’t care one way or another about much of anything anymore.
Bags is a hard man to get ahold of. We tracked O’Booty down at an undisclosed international airport the other day, big black bag in each hand, two more tucked under his arms. He’d donned an off-black belly/fanny combo pack, and sported this tall and really lumpy ebony thing kind of strapped across his shoulders. Bags was running harder than us, but nowhere near as fast. Something was slowing him down.
We caught up as Bags stopped under the “To Geneva” sign. He’d appeared underneath the “From George Town” sign, so we had a pretty good idea what O’Booty was up to.
“You’re taking Mitt’s tax evasion money over to that Swiss bank account, aren’t you, Bags?”
“Who? What? When?’
“From that Cayman Islands bank account, huh, Bags?”
“Where? Why? Who? What? How?”
“It’s in those bags, isn’t it, Bags? Mitt’s tax evasion money.”
“Here, want one?” Bags dangled one of his big black bags in front of us - to be grabbed.
“This wouldn’t be hush money, now would it, Bags?”
“Only if you take it. Still tax evasion money right now.”
That was the first thing coming out of the Carried Interest Hisself and the Two Cadillacs Missus Camp all summer that made any sense to us. We undangled, uncuffed, unzipped, unbuttoned, unsnapped, unlocked, and unstrapped the bag, and asked Bags for a thumbprint, and he keyed in the seven digital combinations. Then Bags opened the final lid with a retina scan. There were 1,370 one million dollar bills inside. We didn’t know they even made one million dollar bills.
“THERE’S ONE BILLION THREE HUNDRED SEVENTY MILLION DOLLARS IN HERE!!!!!”
“Well, don’t grab it all, for goodness sakes. Just what it’s gonna take to hush you up.”
“Take what we want. IN MILLION DOLLAR DEMNOMONATIONS!!!!!
“Christ, MacDougal, would you like me to get you some change?”
I must’ve been giving him a funny look. You could tell the bag man was started to feel uncomfortable about the interview.
“Anybody got change for a million?” Bags raised his voice, but only a little, and maybe 600 guys stood up. It looked like a hedge fund manager’s bag man convention, only it was just a bunch of hedge fun managers’ bag men waiting to take their bags onto the next flight to Geneva at an undisclosed international airport. Anyway, the other bag men had bags too, and pretty soon everybody was undangling, uncuffing, unzipping, unbuttoning, unsnapping unlocking, unstrapping, thumbing, keying, and …..
“WAIT JUST A MINUTE HERE. I DON”T WANT ANY OF MITT’S HUSH MONEY. I’M MACDOUGAL IRVING OF THE MACDOUGAL POST.”
Boy, you should've seen how fast those guys rekeyed, unthumbed, restrapped, relocked, resnapped, rebuttoned, rezipped, recuffed, and redangled those bags of theirs. Subscribers, we made all of you proud.
“Well, what DO you want, MacDougal?”
“Just give me something to write about, O’Booty. Whatever you’ve got.”
“ANYBODY GOT ANYTHING FOR THE MACDOUGAL POST TO WRITE ABOUT?”
Hedge fund managers’ bag men are not a talkative lot. It’s probably one of the job requirements that you don’t let members of the blogging media interview you flying bags from an undisclosed international airport to Geneva. Nobody offered a word.
“Okay,” we continued, not to be discouraged, “tell us about the million dollar bills. We didn’t know they printed million dollar bills.”
“You don’t know a lot of things.”
“We didn’t know they printed bills in denominations higher than one hundred dollars anymore.”
“They don’t.”
“’They don’t?’ Well, what are you carrying them around for?”
“Look close.”
I did.
“Look closer.”
“Holy Wow.” IN GOLDBERG STYX WE TRUST. “This isn’t US currency at all. It’s Goldberg, Styx currency.”
“Well, somebody had to print it.”
“What do you need million dollar bills for anyway?”
“You try carrying billions around the other way.”
“Oh.”
“They also print six hundred and eighty-three million dollar bills too.”
“What? Why a six hundred and eighty-three million dollar denomination?”
“Goldberg has six hundred and eighty-three customers in their Outsized Wealth Management Division. Screw them for a million each, and you’ve got six hundred and eighty-three million dollars to lug overseas. Two million each, and its one billion three hundred and sixty-six million dollars; three million each and its two billion and forty-nine million bucks, and so on, and it starts to get crazy real fast. Goldberg’s bag man just can’t tote that kind of mazoolah over the ocean without a six hundred and eighty-three million dollar denomination.”
“And the rest of you?”
“We’re sick of it. Some banks have four hundred and thirty-two customers in their Outsized Wealth Management Divisions, or three hundred and sixteen, or whatever. That’s why Mitt wants me at the Bureau in January.”
“The Bureau of Printing and Engraving?”
“Yes.”
Let me guess. His hedge funds have one thousand three hundred and seventy customers in their Outsized Wealth Management Divisions.”
“Something like that.”
“We understand,” we finally understood.
“It’s a cool job. I get to print and engrave and date Washington interns, while these guys ….” O’Booty was getting all kinds of funny looks now. Mean ones too … “don’t.”
Bag men are a surly lot. We got out of there fast. You’ve got to figure it was the part about dating the Washington interns that put the other bag men over the top. We found ourselves kind of hoping that the laugh-a-minute cop impersonator would win the election for Bags sake. O’Booty was getting beat up pretty bad. Anyway, we’d finally found at least some reason to vote for somebody now, and that almost made us feel good about November.
Look, at least it‘s a start. You gotta grab whatever life gives you inside this political nuthouse. And if voting for old Carried Interest Hisself and the 2 Cadillacs Missus on account of Bags O’Booty is the only reason we’ve got to go with anybody in this one, we’re gonna cast our ballot for old Carried Interest Hisself and the Two Cadillacs Missus.
And probably convince some of you to come along with us too.
