My constituents / fellow Americans / comrades in the Kremlin, serving you has been the greatest privilege / honor / cash cow of my life. But with wistful sadness / melancholic regret / utter relief from getting off this sinking ship, I am announcing my retirement from the Senate / Congress / posing for photo ops with “regular folks” whose benefits I just slashed.

I am grateful to have had a career in public service while making the country better / a more just society / millions, and I’ve loved working in Washington for you all back home. (Go local college football team / local MLB team / local NFL team owner whose stadium I got taxpayers to subsidize!) But I want to leave office before I ever become complacent / Tillerson beats me to the best oil connections / allegations arise from a staffer on a certain subject that might make me look a wee bit hypocritical.

My retirement has nothing to do with fears of a midterm defeat at the hands of an angry electorate / a well-funded Democratic challenger / this new lunatic they dredged up who makes Roy Moore look reasonable. I do not think the voters would punish me for supporting a president with unpopular policies / record-low approval ratings / having Steven Miller as a best friend, even after he taunted me with a disparaging nickname / insulted my wife’s appearance / dumped his fifth scoop of ice cream on me when I wasn’t looking, claimed “Wasn’t me,” then laughed and said, “Actually it was, you liddle loser! Also, your wife’s ugly.” Nor do I worry that another term in this chamber will tarnish my legacy / make me a target of the special counsel investigation / stain me by association with Trump — not metaphorically; I mean literally being stained orange through epidermal contact.

Rather, I think I can be more effective in the private sector, where I can better utilize my skills as a legislator / highly paid “board member” for industries I’ll deregulate in the coming months / Just for Men hair-dye box model. I am also eager to spend more time with my family / writing my memoirs / no longer being ambushed on camera in the Capitol hallways about Trump’s latest tweet, lie and say I haven’t seen it, then when they read it aloud, plug my ears and sing, “Tra la la, I can’t hear you.”

Regarding a topic many of you have brought up recently, I do not see a need to pass legislation protecting special counsel Mueller, since there is no current threat / the president understands that firing him would trigger a constitutional crisis / oh, whoops, Trump fired him as I was speaking this sentence — guess it’s too late to do anything now. Shucks!

Before I step down, I want to issue a warning with stirring rhetoric to all citizens about the dangers of plutocracy / nativism / authoritarianism, but first I have to hop on a private jet I voted to lower taxes on / authorize the deportation of some three-year-olds while chanting “USA!” / praise the president’s athletic prowess at an executive order signing. But I beseech you: heed my words / remember what I’m saying now and none of my prior actions / at least put an asterisk by my name in the “wrong-side-of-history” books.

I will dearly miss my colleagues, even those across the aisle, which proves that it is possible in our great government to have bipartisanship / through our differences that we seek out common ground / all a game to us, suckers.

Thank you for allowing me to represent you, from the bottom of my heart / Cayman Islands bank account / black hole where a soul would normally be. I couldn’t have done it for so many years without your unwavering support / the Citizens United ruling / low voter turnout and Fox News.

And now, I bid you adieu with the utmost dignity / respectability / complicity.