If you give a politician a cookie

(Inspired by Laura Numeroff's books, with special thanks to my children Kristin and Noel)

If you give a politician a cookie, he will make a mental note to reprimand you later, on a Sesame Street show, for serving unhealthy foods. While he is chewing on his sixth cookie, he will ask you for a glass of organic milk. If you give him the milk, he will most likely spill some of it on your carpet. When he notices the stain, he will cite you for violating property maintenance codes. As soon as he is done with the paperwork, he will send FDA agents to raid the nearby Amish farm on suspicions that they have sold you unauthorized raw milk.

To prevent further spilling, he is going to ask you for a straw. While he is blowing bubbles in his glass, he may notice that the straw is plastic. This will inspire him to write a bill that requires you to recycle it. When he eats a few more cookies and drinks another quart of milk, he will need to visit your bathroom. There he may notice that your toilet uses more than the federally mandated amount of water to flush. This will remind him to increase your sewage tax. If he notices that you are out of kid's dental floss, he may file a complaint with Social Services charging you with child endangerment.

When he gets out of the bathroom, he may notice that the place is littered with cookie crumbs. He will ask you to evacuate your home until EPA removes the bio-hazardous material from the floor. (He will solemnly pledge to PETA that the ants and cockroaches attracted by the crumbs will be relocated in the most humane manner and at the expense of the homeowner.) All this talking, thinking, and legislating will make him thirsty. So he will ask for a glass of milk. And chances are, if you get him the milk, he will want a cookie to go with it. . . .