David Sedaris Rules the World

My boyfriend Hugh doesn’t like serving dinner for heads of state.

Catering for a large group is a difficult job, even without government officials nosing around in your kitchen, and every time Hugh caught my eye he gave me a look that said, “If you ever invite these people over again, you’re picking up takeout.”

The situation was further complicated by certain world leaders who for political or personal reasons refused to speak to the other guests, despite the winning introductions I had prepared for each of them on color-coded three-by-five cards. Ignoring my carefully positioned signs, which indicated they were to stay in the dining room for the duration, they had wandered into our private quarters, forcing me to excuse myself repeatedly in order to shoo them back to the designated areas. At one point, while escorting Silvio Berlusconi to the guest bathroom, I found Fidel Castro thumbing through my small but perfectly organized CD collection, and suddenly understood exactly how J.F.K. must have felt.

To be brutally honest, these people were disappointing me. They were not nearly as witty or full of bons mots as I had expected, and I would have been tempted to call the whole evening off had it not taken so long to organize. The Metro schedule alone had been a complete nightmare to work out, and I’ll sleep soundly if I never see another diplomatic passport in my life.

The evening was wearing thinly on when Hugh finally rang the dinner bell, as if calling a bunch of impeccably dressed ranch hands in for grub after a long day of shoveling manure. As the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations sat down to deviled eggs à la toxic dijonnaise, I knew the moment had arrived to put my ultimate plan into action.

As I deftly produced heavy weaponry from the innocuous-looking serving cart strategically positioned near the dining room’s only exit, I was more than a little surprised to see black-clad security personnel crashing through the windows.

I hadn’t anticipated this, and it suddenly occurred to me that my entire plan for world domination had been formulated when I was twelve years old. I had assumed that one could just walk into a room full of severely poisoned national leaders, open fire, and that would be that. But some of these people had had the foresight to bring backup, and as I stood awkwardly at the front of the room with my AK-47 I suddenly felt like a theremin player at marching band practice.

It would have been nice to say something pithy and evil, but my tongue had become thick and flustered, like a fat man packing his bags and moving to Norway. So I brought my automatic rifle to bear and began picking off the intruders individually, as if they were annoying houseflies on a hot summer day. They fell screaming to the floor as blood spattered in fascinating patterns on the walls and carpet.

“Don’t worry, I’ll clean it up,” I assured Hugh, who by this point was rolling his eyes and washing his hands of the whole affair.

When everyone was dead at last, I seized control of the major radio and television networks and turned on the huge, old-fashioned microphone I’d gotten for Christmas a few years earlier. It was gray and heavy, just about perfect in every way for announcing the dawning of my benevolent global dictatorship.

“Hi, everybody,” I began.