If the NSA has worked up any transcripts of what I've said on the phone, they've probably gotten it wrong.
When I talk on the phone, I'm often unintelligible. Usually it's because I've misplaced the Bluetooth for my iPhone so I'm chatting via the speakerphone. (Often, I can't find the iPhone, either, at which point I begin to cry.) Other times it's because a call has come in and awakened me from a sound sleep -- that would be 1 a.m. to 8 a.m., plus I usually take a power nap from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. -- so my pronunciation is a bit garbled. In the evening, I like to knock back a bottle of Wild Turkey and so if a call comes in, my speech might be just a bit slurred. (I also stand on my balcony shooting off an air gun and making vague plans to run for sheriff of Aspen, Colo., but that's another story.) And I have once weekly chats with my 102-year-old Aunt Esther down in Florida. Her Yiddish scat singer style dialect tends to rub off on me for about an hour after we hang up, so the only way a caller who would have the remotest idea what I'm saying would be if it's Aunt Esther, calling me back.
And so, if the NSA is monitoring my phone calls I worry that they might not be correctly hearing what I'm saying. And, if this is the case, I worry even more, about what the resulting impact on my beloved U.S. of A. might be.
1.I say "Iraqi Insurgents" but the NSA hears, "Iroquois Indians." Result: U.S. military invades a gambling casino in Rochester.
2.I say "greenhouse gases" but the NSA hears, "Gas House Gang." Result: EPA blames global warming on the 1934 St Louis Cardinals.
3.I say, "trade deficit" but the NSA hears, "trade Dwight Howard." Commerce Department acts to impose stiff tariffs on any trades involving the Los Angeles Lakers
4.I say, "Chris Christie" but the NSA hears "Kris Kringle." Result: FEMA sends $7.1 billion in hurricane relief funds to the North Pole.
5.I say, "NASA" but the NSA hears "NAMBLA." Result: White House cuts off funding for space exploration believing that in the not too distant future, a spacecraft manned by a crew of pedophiles will land on Mars.
6.I say, "Al Jazeera" but the NSA hears, "Al Jolson." Result: FCC comes to the conclusion that the The Jazz Singer was al Qaeda propaganda.
7.I say, "Marco Rubio" but the NSA hears "Imelda Marcos." Result: White House believes the immigration bill has a higher likelihood of passage if it's supported by the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan Party. [sic.)
8.I say, "Senator Rand Paul is often in agreement with Rep. Ron Paul." NSA hears, "Rand Paul is on call." Result: Obama's congressional liaison is relieved to hear that Rand Paul has left the Senate and returned to his ophthalmology practice.
9.I say, "Rahm Emanuel" and the NSA hears "Ari Emanuel." White House is alarmed to hear that there's a high rate of gun violence at the William Morris/Endeavor Talent Agency.
10. I say "USA" and the NSA hears "NSA." Result: NSA gets very confused, begins monitoring themselves, eventually decides that the civil liberties of the NSA are under threat from the NSA, at which point, due to a mostly unexplainable, possibly unrelated, Zen encryption spatial duality convergence, every GPS satellite orbiting the earth falls out of orbit and lands on Ted Cruz.