Alienne Fever gripped Bob Ferber by the throat, and squeezed.

Bob had just taken his first sip of orange juice, which was already three weeks past the sell-by date, due to the fact that he liked to buy in bulk. That's when Katie Couric pulled her lips over her large incisors and informed the world that Alienne Mignon was headed home to Canada.

The mouthful of rancid orange juice sprayed from Bob Ferber's maw in a great plume. Eddie, Bob's pet boa constrictor, flicked out his tongue in an attempt to smell the foul, citric cloud from inside his cage. But Bob didn't notice; in fact, he rarely noticed Eddie unless he was stalking or eating large rodents, and the news about Alienne had commanded his rapt attention. "Hot damn!" he hollered.

Alienne Mignon had come to America months earlier on a raft her father built from old cigarette cartons that were stuffed with Styrofoam packing nuggets and wrapped in duct tape, which is good for many things, but apparently not so good for constructing seagoing vessels. Halfway across Lake Superior, or Erie, or Huron (Bob couldn't remember which), the raft broke apart, and Alienne's father drowned. Raft experts would later call Monsieur Mignon's design "ingenious in theory, but fatally flawed in its execution."

Fortunately, a Coast Guard ship that was vigilantly patrolling the U.S.-Canadian border spotted young Alienne clinging to a lone cigarette carton and plucked her from the bass-infested waters. Unfortunately, the boat's crew had plucked her father's bloated remains from the water about an hour earlier, and, caught up in a spontaneous game of Take Your Picture With The Waving Corpse, didn't think to strike the body from its perch on the bow before bringing the child aboard. A Coast Guard spokesman would later remark of the resultant trauma, "The men and women who keep this country safe from the people we don't want coming to this country are under a lot of stress, and sometimes feel the need to engage in activities that diminish humanity. We regret any inconvenience." According to a poll in USA Today, 73% of Americans felt the Coast Guard's statement "provided closure."

As Bob stood, too agitated to sit, Katie Couric passed the journalistic baton to beefy, terse gerund-hound Robert Hagar, who had been encamped for weeks outside the Rochester safe-house where little Alienne was living with her extended family. "Family...crying," emoted Hagar, "protesters...protesting."

"Bullshitters...bullshitting," Bob barked at the television. "Get to the good stuff."

For weeks at the office, Bob had been going at it tooth and nail with his co-workers. There was little office secretary Maria, little second-generation Greek Maria, who would tear up just thinking about wee Alienne. Maria had bought a shellacked piece of Alienne's uneaten pizza crust from E-Bay, and kept it on her desk. She said it spoke to her. Then there was Sharon, his administrative assistant, who thought the government should kidnap Alienne and secret her away to a new identity in Arizona, sort of like the FBI does with mob snitches and people who see Elvis. Bob was the only one in the entire office who thought Alienne should be sent back to Canada on the first boat. It made him angry that there was no one around to support his view. But nothing made him madder than when the other side commandeered his rationale.

"Bob, the United States is a better country than Canada," Maria would say through tears. "Well, no shit, you dumb broad," Bob would think, even if he didn't say it that way. I mean, there are only two major league baseball teams in Canada, compared to something on the order of dozens here in America. There's socialized medicine in Canada, which leads inevitably to the spread of socialism, and then communism, and then whatever form of unspeakably hellish -ism comes next, and who wants that? Half of those people -- including the Mignons, Bob would sometimes add -- speak French. And you know about the French. Oh, mais oui, Mein Fuhrer, make yourself at home. Croissant?

"...and so we should keep Alienne here in the United States," Maria would continue. "Hello, you naive bitch, smell the fucking coffee," Bob would think, even if he didn't say it that way. That's precisely the reason we need to keep him out of this country.

Of course, Bob took care to note that he had a heart. He felt it was unfortunate that anyone needed to grow up in a place where fish and comedians are the leading national exports. But if you let one of these people in, then you have to let them all in, and pretty soon, you have a bunch of grown-up Aliennes running around trying to remake America in the image of the Motherland. That's how it happens, you know. It's war without guns. We're being slowly invaded at every border, and if we don't get smart, we'll be singing "O, Canada" before Orioles games and waiting three months to see the dentist.

Robert Hagar went on. While America slept, Attorney General Wanda Lugosi (whose approval ratings had gradually recovered since the unfortunate FBI/DEA/ATF/CIA/FDA massacre at Penumbra Butte two years earlier) had made a decision. The law was clear on the matter. Alienne was illegal, Lugosi said, and was to be shipped back to Canada to be with her mother. If she didn't go peacefully, we'd remove her with force.

Bob was vindicated. He could hardly wait to go to work. In the shower, he noticed that the water coursing over his scalp and shoulders felt clean, fresh, and unmistakably American. As he applied his deodorant and gobbled his multi-vitamins, he marveled at the conveniences and technological advances that The American Way had engendered, and felt a tingling surge of pride. He put on his blue suit with a white shirt and red tie. It was that kind of a day.

Bob Ferber strapped himself into his Ford Enormous, a brand new model that improved upon the cargo space offered by the Expedition, which had itself improved upon the cargo space offered by the Explorer, and applied pressure to the gas pedal. The response was instantaneous and strong. It was already a great goddamn day, Bob thought, and he felt the impulse to turn on Gordon Liddy for a little extra morale boost. Liddy was a misunderstood stalwart of democracy, but Bob understood him, for Bob was enlightened. As he reached for the dial, he noticed the manufacturer's logo on the stereo.

The name was Japanese.