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It is now widely known that before being whacked by Navy SEALs in a luxury condo in Pakistan, the bearded mastermind Osama Bin Laden was on the verge of being “fired” by collagen-lipped Donald Trump on Celebrity Apprentice; what is not yet widely known is how the bearded mastermind whiled away the years since 9/11, including his sojourn in the USA and his frequent visits to Salt Lake City (see details below).
For readers who may have missed it, here is a brief summary of the events leading up to the execution of Bin Laden (code-named “Woody” due to his uncanny resemblance to the 19th-century Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff): The ubiquitous game-show host Donald Trump, after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, was able to persuade the elusive terrorist to break his contract with Dancing With the Stars and jump over to Celebrity Apprentice, where he was engaged in a fight to the death with his fellow disgraced celebrities, among them Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Martha Stewart, Barry Bonds and Dick Cheney.
Details are murky, but those familiar with final taping say everything came down to a showdown between Bin Laden and Cheney (there had been some tense moments between the two, including Osama’s attempt to disconnect the former vice president’s heart-lung machine, and Cheney’s retaliatory shotgun blast that narrowly missed Osama’s face). At the heart-pounding climax, The Donald pointed a chubby finger at the Al Qaeda CEO and growled, “You’re fired.”
Bin Laden swore “Death to The Donald” and promptly took the elevator down to a waiting stretch limousine, where he was whisked away to board a private jet to Islamabad.
According to reports, the toupee-wearing tycoon was convinced that his firing of the lanky terrorist would be his ticket to the White House. The next thing he knew, however, Osama, chilling in his Playboy-style bedroom after a game of golf, was gunned down by operatives under the direction of President Obama. “I’ve been Trumped,” Trump was quoted as saying when he learned of Osama’s demise.
Now for what Bin Laden was up to between 9/11 and his involuntary exit from the mortal sphere a couple of weeks ago: Intelligence experts assumed that the conspicuously tall terror specialist was always on the move in the rugged borderlands of Afghanistan. It turns out that Osama was indeed always on the move, but instead going from cave to cave, he was going from condo to condo, and instead of relocating under the cover of darkness, he was vacationing in broad daylight.
Always a fan of American culture (he, like George W. Bush, was an absolute nut for the ’50s TV western Bonanza), Osama was particularly taken with the works of Edgar Allan Poe, his favorite story being “The Purloined Letter,” which, as readers well know, turns on the device of hiding a sought-after letter in plain sight. Osama became his own purloined letter, traveling without disguise from popular tourist site to popular tourist site in a vintage Thunderbird convertible, his traditional robes whipping in the wind.
Reports are rapidly coming in about Bin Laden sightings in such perennial tourist favorites as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Mount Rushmore and Dollywood. Utah seems to have been a popular destination for the sworn enemy of America, with evidence that he enjoyed Titus Andronicus at the Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City and rode the Colossus at Lagoon.
“I told the wife, there’s no way that could be that Osama fella,” says Earl Pratt of Spanish Fork, who shared a blanket with Bin Laden and his retinue at the outdoor performance of the Mormon Miracle Pageant last summer in Manti. “Other than when he used his cane to kill squirrels looking for picnic leftovers, the fella was polite and soft-spoken.”
Though The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued a “no comment,” highly placed sources in the Temple Square information center say the diabolical jihadist signed the guest book in a spidery scrawl (“Osama Bin Laden, Abbottabad, Pakistan”) in July 2007. One of the sister missionary tour guides recalls that Bin Laden asked some “annoying” questions about the different levels of heaven.
“I noticed he was always stroking his beard,” recalls Jerrilyn Mackay of Wellsville. “He offered a pile of money if he could get into the Temple, which happens quite a lot. Only Mormons, I said, and then he just kept staring up at the Angel Moroni and looking this way and that up in the sky. Now that I know who it was, it just creeps me out.”