the crying game

Putin cries on Kremlin steps.

Election victory speech brings on tears for Russian President-for-Life.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA (Neuters) – Last night Vladimir Putin took the stage just outside the Kremlin to claim victory in Russia’s presidential election to an audience of thousands.  The speech declaring to the world that he had been “reelected” and accepting that victory was fairly run-of-the-mill as authoritarian acceptance speeches go, except for one thing: Putin cried like Jimmy Swaggart caught in flagrante delicto with a prostitute.

Vladimir Putin practices the traditional
"Celebration of Joy."
(Copyright 2012, Neuters)

Although Russia’s state-run media has carefully hidden the reason for Putin’s tears, inside sources indicate that the following exchange was heard between Putin and his chief of staff immediately prior to the speech:

“Can you believe it, Sergei?  When we decided last week that I would win by 64 percent I told Lyudmila that she should buy me the victory present of my choice: an iPad3.  I TOLD her they would go on sale March 7, but what did she do?  Did she wait?  NO she did not.  She went out and immediately bought me one of those plastic, Rusnano pieces of crap.  Those things are not fit to swat a fly!  Do you know where they are made?  Russia!  I want Cupertino, for god’s sake!”  The despondent President then took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down.  “I just wanted an iPad, Sergei.  An iPad.  I have waited for months, it is so beautiful.  Why cannot the leader of the unfree world have one?”  He put his head in his hands, “If you prick me, do I not bleed?  If I fling incensed pigeons, do swine not die?”

It is believed the Putin was referring to the Russian competitor to the iPad, the Rusnano tablet, a device which uses an all-plastic display developed in Britain.  Early tests of the device have proven unsuccessful and the Russian Technology Agency has blamed cosmic radiation for the malfunctions.  The same reason has been given by the Russian Space Agency for the failure of a Mars probe that crashed to earth in January.

"Would it be too much to ask
someone for a hanky?"
(Copyright 2012, Neuters)

Reports indicate that Putin has remained downhearted well after the election, even into the ceremonial questioning of the election results, a typically happy tradition for the Russian state.  “Sergei, I ask you as my friend,” Putin was heard to say.  “Without my iPad how am I to know when the properly-pious claims of fraud are commenced?  How will I know when Jimmy Carter arrives to say that our vote count controls were not enough?  I do so wish to have a brewski with Mr. Carter once more.  Hearing again his story about the rabbit attack would so cheer me up!”

Relations between Vladimir and Lyudmila have reportedly been tense, with Putin allegedly disconnecting both cable and WiFi in the Kremlin residence until his iPad demands have been met.  “She thinks she is so smart with her Kindle Fire, well I will make sure to block all signals and frustrate her abilities to download the next of the Twilight series.  Russia will be victorious again!”