President Bush eagerly watched out the window as his limousine headed out into the desert. “Isn’t this exciting?”

Vice President Cheney shrugged his shoulders. “Meh.”

“Come on! Aliens have landed and they want to talk to me! I’m going to be the first president to make contact with aliens. That’s gotta be considered more exciting than being the first black president. I’ll bet I’ll be popular after this!”

“You might get a five point peaceful-contact-with-aliens bump in your approval rating.”

“Yee-haw! I can’t wait!”

The limousine came to a stop and Bush jumped out. In the desert had landed a giant flying saucer. A platform lowered from its center bringing three thin, gray being with large black eyes to the ground. “We wish to speak to the leader of Earth,” one said.

“That’s me… for about a month and a half more!” Bush called.

“We bring a message of peace,” the alien said.

“Awesome!”

“And we would also like to let your people know we are willing to do menial labor for below minimum wage.”

Bush’s face sunk. “Aww crap.”

* * * *

Bush sat around the oval office contemplating his situation. “If you have an economic crisis, space aliens landing and taking jobs probably ain’t going to help, is it?” he asked Cheney.

“Nope. You kinda brought this on yourself, you know.”

“I didn’t know our lax immigration laws were known throughout the galaxy! And if anything, this proves fences wouldn’t help.” Bush thought for a moment. “Unless they were really really tall. Hey, so how are my approval ratings doing?”

“Your approval rating is less than the margin of error. Basically what that’s saying is the people who said they approve of your job performance might not have understood the question.”

“Man! This just keeps getting worse! What can I do to convince the American people I’m not a total screw up and get my ratings up before I leave office? I mean, I didn’t let us get his by terrorists again.”

“Eh, no one cares.”

“Well, do you think wearing an important looking hat might help get people to respect me again?”

“Like with a big feather plume or something?”

“Yeah.”

Cheney thought about that. “Wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’ll see if Obama has any ideas. He’s going to be president soon, so this will be his mess.” He picked up the phone and called Obama. “Hey, Barry, it’s Dubya. I was wondering if you or your staff has any ideas what to do about the space aliens.”

“Yes, we have many excellent plans of what to do about that problem.”

“Like what?”

“I’d rather keep them to myself until I’m ready to implement them.”

“Could you give me a hint, though?”

“No, but they are super-smart plans that will solve everything.”

“I don’t think you actually have any plans.”

“I have many plans. In fact, I have more plans than I need and actually tossed out some perfectly good plans to make room for better plans.”

“You’re dumb and stupid and you don’t have any plans!” Bush hung up the phone and looked to Cheney. “I like that guy; he’s smart.”

Bush’s intercom buzzed. “Someone with a mustache is here to see you,” Bush’s secretary said.

“Is he gay or Mexican?”

“He’s openly Mexican.”

“Okay, send him in.” Bush looked to Cheney. “You have to be careful; gays have been really violent lately.”

Juan Hernandez came into the room. “We have a problem we need to talk about, Mr. President.”

“Wow, you have a smile that makes me not want to trust anything you say,” Bush remarked.

“Yes, I am often told this. Anyway, these illegal aliens from space are unacceptable! They are taking jobs from hard working earthling illegal aliens!”

“You know, technically no one is supposed to be crossing our border to do work.”

“Don’t speak to me of such nonsense!” Juan said. “You need to do something about the illegal space aliens!”

“Well, it’s not like I can deport them. They live in space, so that would cost like billion and billions and billions of dollars… if I knew where their home planet was. Plus, if I tell them to leave they could get angry, and they might have death rays and stuff.”

“Would you rather have space aliens shooting death rays at you or make the Mexicans angry?” Juan asked.

“I don’t want the Mexicans angry at me,” Bush said. “I guess I’ll talk to them.”

* * * *

Bush headed over to the space aliens who were hanging out in front of the Home Depot. “We need to talk.”

“Work has been good. People are turned off by our odd appearance, but they like how we speak English. Do you have work for me? I am particularly good at lawn care,” one of the aliens said. “Space travel is expensive; it has left us with no money so we need need the work. By the way, that is a very important hat you’re wearing.”

“Thanks.” Bush fiddled idly with the feather. “Anyway, the thing is…” Another spacecraft landed in the Home Depot parking lot. Out of it came some more gray aliens and also some Middle Eastern men. “Um… are those Arabs?”

“We had to make a stop in the Middle East and some people there wanted a ride into your country. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“See, I kinda mind. Do you have borders on your home planet?”

“Yes, we do.”

“And how would you feel if people ignored them?” Bush asked.

“That would be a grave insult. We would disintegrate the interlopers.”

“Okay… well, then maybe you see how you coming here to do work might be a problem.”

“We thought you didn’t mind,” the alien said. “We are only doing the work others won’t since we’re already doing it for cheaper.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”

“This angers us. You implicitly invited us with your lax immigration enforcement and then tell us to leave? For this, we may come back and conquer your planet and enslave your people.”

“Okay, just don’t do it until after January 20th so I don’t get blamed.”

The aliens got into their spaceships and flew away. Bush took out his cellphone and called Cheney. “So, how did it go?” Cheney asked.

“They were pretty reasonable. I got them to leave, but they may come back and conquer Earth.”

Cheney was silent for a moment. “Did you tell them about Halliburton in case they needed military contracts.”

Bush sighed. “No, Dick. No I didn’t.”