Blooming Grove, Ohio, May 2, 2010–With oil prices on the rise, members of the Warren G. Harding Seance and Spook Association (WGHSASA), asked the ghost of the former President at his annual Walpurgis Night appearance if he knew “what’s up with big oil?”
“The Spirit of Teapot Dome is pushing up oil prices,” said Harding (1865-1923), “and this time out, none of my friends are going to take the fall for it.”
Harding, who is often called America’s least-effective President, has appeared to paranormal people on the thirteenth floor of the historic Argus Hotel in metropolitan Blooming Grove near his birthplace every Walpurgis Night since 1924.
When the former President appeared to be a no-show for his yearly Not Nostrums, But Normalcy meeting with CIA operatives, thrill seekers and Presidential hopefuls, WGHSASA members lit an extra bonfire on the hotel balcony and began changing the immortal lines of writer John Hodgman:
Fiddle, diddle, fiddle fee,
Teapot Dome has come for me.
Fiddle, diddle, middle, me,
Harding’s corpse will come for thee.
Harding, who materialized dead-center on an overstuffed couch, shouted, “Who interupts my sleep tonight when the powers of darkness are abroad in the land?”
“It is I, Master, your humble servant, Mikey De Wolfe, president of the Blooming Grove chapter of your fan club.”
“What have you to ask of me, Mikey?”
“We are concerned about Benchmark oil for June delivery prices as reflected in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and on the ICE Futures Exchange in London,” said Mikey.
“Mikey, dear boy, you must always remember my credo, Not Agitation, But Adjustment,” said Harding. “As you ponder oil prices, ponder where the oil is and who has it.”
“Big oil has it, Sir.”
“Have they really?”
Harding leaned back on the couch and seemed to fall asleep. When Hodgman’s immortal lines failed to hold him to the earth plane, Mikey and other WGHSASA members served the traditional post-seance snack of Alaskan King crab to all who had gathered at the Argus.
On-the-scene historians reminded reporters that the meal is a brave tribute to a former President who, some say, died of bad crabs in San Francisco during his 1923 cross-country “Voyage of Misunderstanding,” rail trip.
According to well-placed insiders, “Big Oil” representives attending the seance where “white faced” during Harding’s pronouncements. One grey haired man dropped his teapot.
According to Old Maxie, the elevator boy at the Argus, the hotel doesn’t have a thirteenth floor.
“But every year they come here,” he said, with a grin on his face, “to re-enact Odgen Nash’s most famous epic, A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor. As Nash said, conversations like this are ‘table talk in hell.’ Let’s depart in peace in a spirit of Not Experiment, But Equipoise and let our dearly departed Presidents lie.”
Mikey laughed when Maxie said that.
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–Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter for the Star-Gazer. Download his free “Jock Talks…Satirical News” e-book from Smashwords.
Malcolm's Round Table 
This bears out my feelings that departed Presidents are much more to be preferred than present ones.
They can definitely cause less harm.