Minutes from Bump-Poot Hell Sinky Summit

When Bump entered the spacious reception room in Hotel Kamp, Poot was already downing his second vodka-seven, irritated because Bump kept him waiting for 45 minutes. Ordinarily, people who did that disappeared the next day.

“Sorry, I was late, but we had a hard time finding Hell Sinky,” Bump explained as he mixed a tumbler of vodka and Florida orange juice. “Actually, I thought Hell Sinky was in Iceland so we got a little diverted.”

“That’s Reykjavik,” Poot noted.

“I know that now. WOW airlines in Iceland clogged the runway so we couldn’t land,’” Bump continued. “The pilot gave me options of other capitals – Stockholm, Brussels, Paris - and they all sounded better than Hell Sinky – but Sanders told me the summit was in Finland so here I am.”

“It’s a mystery to me how Hillary got three million more votes than you and was the loser,” Poot needled Bump. “America is only country where the candidate with the most votes is the loser.”

Bump grimaced at the mention of the popular votes and took a big swig from his glass.

“Let’s tackle the toughest issue first,” Bump suggested. “Meddling in the 2016 election.”

“We didn’t meddle – just gave our favorite candidate a little help,” Poot responded. “And we do have Hillary’s 33,000 missing e-mails.”

“No kidding. I’m not surprised,” Bump noted casually. “What do they say?

“Well, 32,993 went to Bill with the same message: ‘Stay home, shut your mouth, supper is in refrigerator’. The other seven warned him not to overfeed himself or the dog.”

“Well, Poot, whatever you did in the 2016 campaign you did on your own,” Bump said emphatically. ”So read my lips: NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION! NO COLLUSION!”

“Okay, no collusion. Would it help if I gave you the 25 hackers that have been indicted?” Poot proposed.

“Lord, no!” Bump exclaimed excitedly, spilling his drink. “CNN would be interviewing them one at a time until election day. The hounds back home will want to know if we had harsh words over your meddling,” Bump continued. “But I will tell them that I grilled you until you admitted that you didn’t do it.”

“I can support that,” Poot conceded with a smile.” We helped you. Now it’s your turn to help us.”

“What do you want? Just ask up to half of my kingdom and it will be yours,” Bump offered, not remembering that somebody once lost his head over a statement like that.

“I was thinking of Romania to start with,” Poot blurted, bracing for a shout of disagreement.

“Where’s that?” Bump asked Poot calmly.

“Oh, it’s a small country down there on the Black Sea – a little oil and a warm water port.”

“Would you just take Finland for now and we’ll see about Romania later?” Bump countered.

“I don’t want Finland,” Poot said, stomping his leftist foot. “We fought the Finns and all we got were frozen toes.”

“But Finland is a great place. Have you seen the Vanhankaupunginkoski Rapids yet? Outstanding! Great!”

“Seen it? I can’t even pronounce it. That’s why I don’t want Finland.”

“If you make vodka duty-free, we wouldn’t complain if you took Iceland,” Bump promised.

“We don’t need Iceland. We have Siberia.” Poot persisted.

“Here’s my deal,” Bump offered, as he waved his glass. “We won’t oppose you annexing Iceland in December and Greenland in June.”

“That’s no deal,” argued Poot. “With earth warming, they’ be swamps in 10 years.”

This exasperated the great dealmaker.

“Do anything, say anything, but Ivanka has to get a booth at the Moscow craft show in May,” Bump hard bargained.

Poot agreed. The big deal was made so they shook hands and went out to meet the enemies of the people.