In the future, just a few years from now, egg salad sandwiches will be illegal, and anyone caught with possession of one will be sentenced to two years of hard labor and torture, including being locked in a small five by five foot cement block cell with an insurance salesman for an unspecified time.

At first, the public will be uncertain as to the intent of this law, if the newly elected president, Chester B. Chester, intends to seriously enforce it, until during his first press conference Chester detects a dab of egg salad on CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer’s beard. He aggressively interrogates Blitzer, calling him up to the podium where he sticks his nose in Blitzer’s chin and loudly sniffs, finally exclaiming “That’s Hellmans!  I’d know Hellman’s anywhere!  You thought you could slip a little bit of Hellman’s past Chester B. Chester!  Ha!  That’ll be he day!”  He then announces that he is mobilizing the twelfth division of the U.S. Army on a reconnaissance mission to overtake and occupy Blitzer’s beard. ”It’s my prerogative as commander in chief,” he added, before he announced that the rest of the press conference would continue as planned but that he would only take questions about egg salad. “By the way,” he added, “if anybody knows what the word reconnaissance means, please let me know.”

Three hours later, after fielding fifty seven questions about egg salad, Chester returned to what used to be referred to as the oval office.  Chester had renamed the room the Egg Salad Emporium, and in the hallway, he’d replaced all of the portraits of past presidents with tasteful artistic renditions of egg salad. They were tasteful because the canvases were actually made from egg salad, and Chester had already taken bites out of several of them.

“Where’s my secretary of Egg Salad?” Chester barked into the intercom on his desk.

“He’s just arrived,” his receptionist, Alice Tinkerton responded.  It wasn’t common knowledge but in her previous career Alice TInkerton was an engineer who had developed one of Chester’s favorite egg salad recipes.  “I’ll send him in.”

Egg Salad Edwards, as Chester had renamed the man, entered the Egg Salad Emporium and took a seat in the chair across the desk from Chester. In his hands he was holding a portfolio filled with important documents.

“Is that the report?”  Chester asked.

“Yes. Do you care to read it?” Edwards replied.

“Just give me the highlights,” Chester said.

“Well, sir, I am pleased to announce that all egg salad manufacturing plants across the country have been shut down.”

“What?”  Chester’s voice thundered with rage. “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

“But I assumed,” Edwards replied, “that when you signed the executive order banning all consumption of egg salad, that you also meant to halt all egg salad production, too.”

“Edwards, you fool!  Can’t you see?   And to think I picked you to be my secretary of Egg Salad.”

“Sir, I’m sorry …” Edwards studied his shoes, his head down in shame.

“And to think I even renamed you Egg Salad Edwards.  What was your name before again?

“Um, Joe.  Joe Malone.  From Dubuque Iowa.”

“And what did you do?”

I was a shoelace salesman.”

“Well, I’ll give you 24 hours to get all the manufacturing plants in operation again.  And I expect to double, no triple, their production level. We need a healthy GDESP. ”

“GDESP?”

“Gross Domestic Egg Salad Product.  For a guy named Egg Salad Edwards, you sure don’t know much about egg salad, do you?”

“I guess not. May I ask, sir, if the consumption of egg salad is illegal, why do we need to increase production?”

“Oh, Edwards, Edwards, you are an idiot, aren’t you?”

“I suppose I am, sir.”

“It’s for me!”

“What’s for you, sir?”

“All of the egg salad. All the egg salad in these United  States will be mine and mine alone.  Then we’ll expand until I have all of the egg salad in the western hemisphere.  ‘Ensalada de huevo’ as they say in the Spanish speaking countries. Then …. the world!”

So it begins, the most glorious period in the history of the world.  After declaring martial law, Chester will continue to rule the United States, consuming nothing but egg salad for the next twenty seven years , making the U.S.Egg Salad (as Chester eventually renames the country) the undisputed dominant superpower in the sandwich salad race. Russia will make major advances in chicken salad, and China in tuna salad, but neither will come close to Chester B. Chester and his vast Egg Salad empire.