Feeding Time

When I was eleven, my parents took me on a tour of the White House. I was a spacey kid and soon got lost from the tour. I was wandering the halls of the White House by myself.

President Nixon stuck his head out of an office. I recognized him from TV. I said hi. He said hello and asked me if I would like to make an easy five dollars. I thought of all the candy that would buy me and I said yes.

I went into the office. There were stacks of paper everywhere. In the midst of it all was a noisy shredding machine hastily being fed papers by sweaty USSR head of state, Leonid Brezhnev. President Nixon said Brezhnev was tired and needed a break. So I took over.

I liked shredding papers. I imagined that the shredder was a robot that was hungry. I thought about how everything needs to eat. At one time the trees that were now this paper, took in nutrients from the ground. That morning I ate a bowl of Capt N’ Crunch. President Nixon and Brezhnev were off to the side eating donuts.