excerpts from Dick Cheney's diaries

12/27: As I went to pick up the morning paper, I noticed the cutest little puppy rolling around on my lawn. I picked up the little feller and decapitated him with my bare hands, drinking down the blood from his skull in one draft. Anyway, just then I noticed a young boy in tears. "Mister, why'd you kill my new puppy? My mommy just got it for me for Christmas!" I felt sorry for him, so I said, "Hey kid! Catch!" and hurled the puppy's head at him full-force. It was pretty funny the way he doubled over in pain and fell vomiting into the street. And it's not my fault: I've told the goddamned bus company to slow down on my block so I can see the driver salute as he drives past. It's such a shame when a young life goes to waste. But I'd already eaten breakfast, so I swept the kid's mangled corpse into the sewer.

1/3: You know what my favorite song ever is? "Muskrat Love." That one always makes me cry like a little girl.

1/19: An amusing incident at dinner this evening. Eating my porterhouse, I ran into a particularly tough section of steak. Well, I refused to back down and give in to the damned steak...after all, back in my Wyoming youth I had a reputation for having the toughest teeth around - and in college, when a buddy of mine lost his car keys (let's just say he'd had a bit too much "youthful indiscretion"), I bit the doorhandle off his Maserati so he could get in. Well, anyway, I'm gnawing manfully away at the steak, and finally, after crunching through some bone, I swallowed the ungrateful hunk of meat. It was then I discovered that I'd accidentally bitten off my own thumb. Thankfully, the surgeons available to serve the office of Vice President of the United States of America are the best anywhere. They found a new, real thumb for me right away (ha! I guess my fingerprints won't match anymore), sewed it on, and everything's good as new. Of course, I had to send the surgeons to Gitmo afterwards - otherwise those damned journalists would never shut up about it. "Where'd you get the thumb, Mr. Cheney sir?" Whine, whine, whine.

2/6: W. called me into his office last week, yipping away about Jesus again. I thought I'd have some fun with him, so I told him I'd heard a rumor that Heaven's streets of gold needed repaving, and I knew just the guys who'd do a great job on them, hint hint. Sure enough, he took the bait - and this afternoon, one of my Halliburton buddies told me: $100 billion no-bid contract to repave all the streets in Heaven. Ka-ching!

2/18: Lynne was feeling a bit frisky last night, so instead of our usual game of "Hide the WMD," we played a new game - which I called "ICBM." She was a bit frail though - age will do that to a body - and it's really too bad I broke her hip. I'll miss her - but mercy dictated that she had to be put down. Back of the head, center of the skull. This time, I didn't miss.