hipping clerk Charles McKinley mailed himself from New York to Dallas in a shipping crate last week, as was reported by every major news outlet on Tuesday in the face of an apparent total lack of actual news.

Authorities believe McKinley had help from at least one co-worker at the New York warehouse where he is employed, since it is extremely difficult to nail yourself into a shipping crate from the inside. The homesick McKinley, too broke to afford an airline ticket, came up with the idea after a friend complimented him on his ability to avoid buying a car by stowing away in other drivers’ trunks in order to get around town. McKinley also remembered a similar idea working in a humorous MC 900 Ft. Jesus video he’d seen years before.

McKinley took neither food nor water along with him for the 15-hour journey, only a broken cell-phone and a Game Boy Advance for which he soon lamented not buying a backlight.

“I brought my cell phone, even though that piece of shit’s been broken for two weeks, just in case we got up in space and all of a sudden I had service again,� explained McKinley. “That’dve been sweet, because I could call up Charles and be like ‘Yo whatup dog, I’m calling you from a box in space and shit!’ There’s no way Charles would believe that, man, he’d think I was drunk or something. But he’dve been wrong. I wish I was drunk, that probably would’ve made the fifteen hours in the dark with knees all crammed up in my face go faster now that I think about it. But yeah, I brought my cell phone because I think it’s the battery that’s all jacked from the time I dropped it in that toilet at the bar, and I figure it might not have enough juice to pull down the phone calls from the satellites all the way to the ground, you know? But maybe it’ll work on the plane ‘cuz we’re closer to the satellites and all that. But no dice, piece of shit was still busted.�

Embarrassed federal officials are still trying to determine how McKinley made it through airport security, which presumably has some kind of dogs or something that check to make sure crates being shipped don’t smell like sweaty morons. Officials refused to speculate what security measures might be in place to prevent this kind of occurrence, though they neither confirmed nor denied that a funny way to test would be to drop all packages from a height of several feet to see if any of them screamed.

Upon arriving at his parents’ suburban Dallas home, McKinley busted out of the crate with a crowbar, scaring the holy shit out of a deliveryman who thought he was dropping off a huge shipment of Triscuits.

“I thought it was funny that the thing smelled like a big box of snack crackers and B.O., but I still didn’t expect some weirdo to bust out like a jackass-in the-box,� explained deliveryman Billy Ray Thomas. “And yeah, the rumors are true, I may have screamed kind of like a girl when he popped out. And then I called the cops on my cell phone because, hey man, fuck you!�

When the police arrived they arrested McKinley on an unrelated charge of passing bad checks and sneaking onto a train in a large duffel bag. Federal officials are also considering charges of “stowing away on a plane,� the violation of a law created in the 1940’s to give police characters more to do in Warner Bros. cartoons.

Asked how much he saved by traveling in the cargo hold, McKinley made it clear that his employer had unwittingly footed the bill for his low-budget odyssey. “Oh shit man, I couldn’t afford to mail a box that heavy. You have any idea what that must cost? Damn. I just traveled cross-country in a crate, Jack, do I look like I’m made of money?�

he White House, home of the White, faced a major embarrassment this week when a release by the president's private probe into the power failures of two weeks ago pointed to a most uncomfortable source—Dick. Indeed, Vice President Dick Cheney was singled out as the leading cause of the energy problem that left multiple states in periods of blackout.

It ended a troubling week for the Vice President, whose office was accused of holding out information on an energy probe Monday by refusing to turn over documents vital to the investigation. The General Accounting Office reported the administration met with a succession of energy lobbyists, to the complete and total surprise of Americans everywhere, but the extent of corporate involvement in energy policymaking could not be verified without the documents withheld by the Vice President.

The latest revelation of Cheney's involvement in energy problems could adversely affect his position on the 2004 Republican ticket. The president's probe, inserted deep inside the problem, made note of several private excesses that may have led to the undue strain on the northeastern power grids. Cheney officials confirmed Friday that the Vice President's quarters in the White House is the only one plugged into the northeastern power grid, pointing out that the Vice President's power needs "cannot be satisfied by the piddlin'-ass power grid currently supplying the D.C. area."

One of the power offenses Cheney is accused of includes the employ of an industrial-grade air conditioner used solely for the Vice President's bedroom. Some say the personal air conditioner is the only 90-million BTU unit made for personal use. Vice Presidential spokesperson Canton Canby only responded to the allegation by claiming, "The VP likes to walk around naked."

Close investigation by the probe, under the guidance of Neilson "Soft Crust" Reilly, revealed that virtually nothing in the Vice President's White House quarters were not temperature-regulated. His personal pool and hot tub were heated, and his private work-out room, never used, we can guess, was cooled. Documentation also proves the VP had his sauna air conditioned and his refrigerator heated, as the best way to keep balanced temperatures to all things. Personal assistant Canby did not find the temperature regulation obsession strange.

"Well, maybe to the working man that sounds like an odd thing, but I know if I were doing work as important as the Vice President, I certainly wouldn't want to be worried about how hot or cold my fridge needed to be to enjoy a frosty beverage when I got home from the Middle East or wherever he's gone off to."

Among the more alarming findings of the probe were hospital-grade shock paddles. Canby, now sweating and in need of an industrial-strength air conditioner himself, found nothing odd about the frequently-used paddles, employed by the VP sometimes up to six times a day.

"What? So you got to be dead to want a charge from those things? There's no law says you got to be dead. The Vice President got used to the jump start you get from absorbing electricity straight into the body. There's no law against it and at the time we weren't under orders to conserve energy. Get off the guy's back. Sometimes his heart needs a little warning blast to know to keep doing its job, if it knows what's good for it."

Canby refused to answer further questions on the probe's accusations, waiting to receive the results from a probe conducted by the Vice President's wife, Lynn Cheney, under the objective to find out who left all these lights on in here.

A wise man once said, "Greatness is not measured in words, but in actions." That was me! I said that.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm great. I'm always saying wise stuff like what I just said. It's not a one-time thing or anything. Some people, I'm not naming names, but you're lucky to get two, three wise sayings out of them in their whole lifetime. I pop off stuff like that in my sleep, at least once a day. No kidding, ask people who know me.

A lot of people attribute my intelligence to a good upbringing, but it probably has more to do with my natural insight into virtually all things. I'm what you could call street educated, since I've never been to college and dropped out of high school. My philosophy is you don't need some stodgy professor in some building to teach you about the world. I've made the world my classroom, and I have perfect attendance. I know things instinctively, like how many Senates we have in Congress and how planes work. Here's a hint: It's the jets and the wings. I didn't need anybody to tell me that.

The trouble with people not me, they lack the confidence to realize they know everything they really need to. If you're going to be a doctor or something like that, yeah, you probably want to take a few years of school or whatever—not that I couldn't do it, but I'd hate to be put on the spot if I needed to know something. But for the rest of us, if you're insightful like me, we already know most of the stuff we need to know. I've laid carpet in my own apartment. I can do practically anything.

To be truly great, though, you've got to get along well with other people, and I get along with everybody. There's not a day goes by I don't talk to someone who I consider a friend. Whether they're coming to me with their problems, seeking my help, or just chatting me up, I've always got a minute to spare for anybody. Sometimes they've got something bugging them and I give them advice. They're like, "Awoll, someone got my sister pregnant." And they ask if it was me, and I tell them it wasn't, but I know what they really want is reassurance—and some help! I tell them stay the course, man, everything is cool. Or that they need to learn to live with changes. Either one of those is usually all anybody needs.

But I'm a fun guy, too. I've got friends who, all we do is go out drinking together. We'll see each other once a week or once a night and go out and get hammered, just for kicks, because life is short and you've got to know how to live. A few times some of my buddies have come up to me at my telemarketing job and they've been really depressed, so we go out for a beer together during lunch. I'm always there for the friends who need me.

Not that I'm all Mr. Nice Guy. If you cross me, you may regret it. Anybody who wants to make me or my friends and family feel bad is public enemy number one—don't try to tell me I can't chase my dreams or I can't park there. Cynics like you are just sore because you wasted your talents not following your dreams. Another thing I hate is people who tell you you're wrong. They'll tell you how you mispronounced words, they'll say you don't know what you're talking about, or tell you the directions you gave to the Safeway were way off. I say, shut-up! Does it make you feel big to make other people look small? You're just a show-off.

I suppose I got a teensy weensy temper. Even the most perfect people have the occasional vice. It doesn't mean I'm not still great.

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