The Octopus-Wrangling Secretary of Defense

George Beaufort Langford was simply in the right place at the right time. During his presidential campaign, Jimmy Carter and his brother Billy were waiting for a bus when they noticed George. Billy dared Jimmy to make him the Secretary of Defense if he was elected, and as we all know, Jimmy Carter never turns down a dare.

Now, if I told you George was a good Secretary of Defense, I would be lying to you, but I’ll have you know he tried his very best. It is a shame that all those people had to have their toes removed, but you don’t mess around when there’s an epidemic of poisontoe. And it was also unfortunate that the entire cabinet had to have face transplants, but some believe that poisonface is even more dangerous than poisontoe. Now of course, we know that these “epidemics” don’t exist and were merely figments of George’s active imagination, but George acted in the nation’s best interest within the confines of his imaginary world.

He continued his life in the private sector, dedicating most of his time to working with octopi. His fascination with the octopus stemmed from the fact that he was born with 8 fingers on each hand, all of which were covered in suction cups. Doctors were never able to pin down exactly what was wrong with him, but whatever it was gave him a telepathic link with all nearby cephalopods. Marine biologists utilized George’s ability to tell jokes to octopi, to tell them to shut up when they were being annoying, and to play scrabble with them by proxy. The project ran out of money after three years of operation, but it was during this phase of his life that George met his wife, a scientist named Jane Goodall. After the project ended, the two of them decided to go live with chimpanzees for a while.

- Kent Wicklander