Who Really Controls the World?
Brian Davis
(1998)
“Waitress!”
“More coffee!”
“Check please!”
“Coming!” I called, balancing a tray of six breakfasts and coffees. Deftly I slipped the check to the customer at table three as I set the tray down on an empty table nearby. I could serve the breakfasts in a moment: I know the ambassador of Egypt hates to wait.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “What the hell is a foreign ambassador doing in a greasy spoon in the middle of nowhere?! It’s impossible!” Well, where I work isn’t exactly a greasy spoon; this is an IHOP.
After the Third World War, it was unanimously decided that there be a universal embassy for ambassadors from every nation to meet anytime they pleased. Also, it was decided that the embassy should have no central building and no central administration, and that it have at least one station in each country. No nation, after so costly and devastating a war, could afford to fund such an embassy. And there was only one organization in existence that met all the present qualifications:
The International House of Pancakes.
Now, instead of working at some greasy, dirty restaurant in Chicago, I’m an esteemed employee of the world’s peacekeeper and mediator between nations.
But sometimes, it still gets boring. I still just wait tables and wash dishes for a living. So sometimes I spread misinformation. Believe it or not, idle waitress gossip is still the most trusted and best received information in the world.
For instance, last month I was waiting on three of Japan’s most esteemed ambassadors. Now me, I’m a bit pissed at the British. After all, they did nuke my home town of Detroit. So I said to them, “I overheard the British ambassadors the other day. They said that they were collaborating with Germany to send espionage forces into Japan.” (By the way, the Germans and the British were allied against the Japanese.)
“You can’t be serious! We’ve divided Britain into occupation zones, and our forces are still running surveillance operations! Our forces would have known that by now!” (The Japanese, in alliance with Russia and Egypt, actually managed to defeat the British.)
“Still,” I said, “I distinctly heard one ambassador say to another, ‘We’re gonna get those yellow bastards good this time.’” (THAT really caught their attention.)
So the Japanese ambassadors, in their fury, demanded that the British send their ambassadors to the IHOP in London. No new wars were declared, and no treaties canceled, but to this day an additional degree of unease exists between the two nations.
One time, on accident, I nearly drove China to declare nuclear war on Brazil! (Their army shot down my brother, who was in the Air Force.) I’m more careful now, and usually much more subtle.
But still, I love the feeling of controlling the fates of all the nations on Earth. It’s like playing “Risk.” Imagine – an average waitress manipulating the most powerful people on the planet! As my dad would have said, “Who’da thunk it?”
Now table five needs another round of coffee. And guess what – two of the ambassadors there are from the Ukraine! The Canadians killed my sister and my cousin. And the Ukranians DESPISE the Canadians!
“By the way, last week I overheard the Canadians saying…”
The End
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Last modified: April 4, 2002