CONGRESS: Hi! I’m the 116th United States Congress. I have to go away for some time. Please watch the country while I’m gone for thirty-five days. And remember, don’t let the pigeon build a border wall!

116th United States Congress walks away.

PIGEON: Phew! I thought we’d never get rid of him… Hey, can I build a border wall? Please? I tell you what: It’ll only cost around $5.7 billion and I’ll make Mexico pay for it.

. . .

PIGEON: No? Oh, come on!

Pigeon scratches head.

PIGEON: I have an idea. I will build a steel border wall with large gaps between each slat so that literally anyone — much like the million-plus federal contract workers not receiving post-shutdown back pay, the almost 40,000 homeless veterans, and the 43.1 million people living in poverty — can just slip through the cracks!

. . .

PIGEON: Why not?!

Pigeon looks perturbed, squints angrily, tweets divisive rhetoric.

PIGEON: You never let me build a 2,000-mile-long, financially inadvisable monument to xenophobia that perpetuates the rampant spread of misinformation, despite the fact that illegal border crossing is down from 1.6 million in 2000 to less than 400,000 in 2018 and the vast majority of drugs get in the United States through legal points of entry!

Pigeon stomps foot, grimaces, and fires all undocumented immigrants working at his golf clubs.

PIGEON: Let’s make a deal. Not in the sense that we are entering into a mutually beneficial agreement, per se, but in the sense that I am saying the word “deal” very loudly and doing a big gesture really close to your face.

Pigeon rolls eyes and crosses arms.

PIGEON: Here is the deal: If you let me build a border wall, I reopen the government and temporarily re-extend protections for the Dreamers. It will be just like the time before I was in charge and Obama was still president which was, as they say, “a time when we weren’t locking children in cages or actively discriminating against transgender people serving and protecting in the armed forces.” Liberals love that stuff!

Pigeon sighs dramatically and glares.

PIGEON: You know, when you’re not here, Mike Pence always lets me commit gross overreaches of my presidential power without a single thought towards their potential ramifications down the line. No, don’t call him to confirm. Just… take my word for it.

PIGEON: UGH. JUST LET ME BUILD A BORDER WALL!!!!

116th United States Congress comes back.

CONGRESS: I’m here! What did I miss? Did you let the pigeon build a border wall?

Pigeon declares a national emergency and creates a dangerous legal precedent for the executive branch overriding the very checks and balances on which this nation was founded. Pigeon then flies to Mar-a-Lago.

THE END!