Working frantically to dispose of the lifeless, shriveled husks that cover the floor, a White House Janitor admitted today that she is tired of cleaning dead objects out of Steve Bannon’s office.
“It never stops. Every evening I come in and there’s something new lying on the carpet,” she says, glancing furtively over her shoulder to make sure Bannon has left. “I always make sure to come extra late, because the last time I ran into him here he brandished an ornate dagger at me and asked me to look upon the engravings with respect. He said ‘This has been passed down for generations among the patriarch of my family. The artist who made it now burns in hell, for his soul can never be clean.’ What a weird guy, am I right?”
When asked what kind of dead objects she tends to find, the White House Janitor, Lucy Phillipps, merely shrugs.
“Lots of things. The more appropriate question would be ‘what haven’t you found?’” She says. “We’re talking rats, cats, mice, otters, butterflies, badgers, little snakes, big snakes, really big snakes, and lots and lots of crows. Always big black birds, ravens sometimes too. One time I found this big bird looking thing with sharp claws and a woman’s face. Steve lingered long enough to tell me it was called a ‘harpy’, before vanishing into the shadows as he usually does. Come to think of it, I’ve never even seen him truly walk out the door.”
When interviewed for comment, the White House Florist expressed a similar frustration.
“Oh, I hate working in Steve’s office,” the florist, Daniel Jenkins, says. “Every potted plant I’ve ever put in there has shriveled up into ashy little husks. I have to scoop them out daily, and throw them away. Even the fake ones I put in there managed to die somehow!”
Asked if he finds any of this behavior unusual, Jenkins shakes his head. “He can be stressful to clean up after, but it’s no skin off my back. I’ve worked here for many years and there have always been strange ones that come and go. Occasionally Steve looks at me weird, and I can hear the screaming of my loved ones playing on loop in the back of my head, but at the end of the day he’s still my boss, and I’ve got to respect that. Sometimes, in the mornings, when he comes in after a late night of binge drinking and what I assume to be shrill screaming over an open fire—as his voice is always pretty warn and he smells of smoke—he’ll let me take a shot out of his flask. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had before, and it smells real foul, but I’ve come to like the taste of it. Sort of, uh, metallic, I think?”
At press time, reporters were barred from the White House, but for an actual legitimate reason this time, as the medical staff rushed to deal with a fallen dignitary. When pressed for comment a White House Official only offered that Mr. Bannon “probably forgot to wear his gloves again.”