While on a trip abroad, the President of the United States has a problem. Embarrassed at the sight of his giant turd in the toilet that refuses to flush away, he tries to decide what to do next. Feeling ashamed for leaving such matter behind, he ends up pulling the thing out with a trash bag, before carefully wrapping it up like a present. This just leaves the problem of what to do with it and so into his suit jacket pocket it goes. Before he has a chance to dispose of it somewhere else, he finds himself in the limelight as three countries have gone to war and everyone is looking to him for leadership. A sticky, and rather smelly, situation indeed, as he tries to concentrate not only on the global disaster, but the fact he is carrying around something he would rather not be caught with.

A curious little story that is an easy, if slightly absurd, tale to read which raised a few chuckles on the way. The setup is quiet simple, the most powerful man in the world in a situation he is totally embarrassed by followed up by the the devolving farce as the world starts to crash down around his ears. Having to concentrate on global affairs while dealing with the matter at hand provides ample opportunity for mix-ups and missed steps until the ultimate denouement. Whether it was based on a particular president, well I would prefer not to guess if it is or not. The story itself is well written and easy to follow, although the using american terminology throughout. The nature of it lends itself well to making several jokes about both toilet humour and the increasingly desperate situation our protagonist finds themself in. I didn’t notice any spelling or grammatical errors and the book is well laid out, switching neatly between the general story and the highlighted president’s thoughts, providing a neat insight into his world.

While I didn’t necessarily get the idea the first time round, it did hold up to a couple of repeat reads giving me a good snigger each time.