CAIRO, Egypt -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stunned and disappointed hundreds of thousands of protesters Thursday when he announced that he would not be stepping down, but would instead transfer the powers of his office to the vice president. Mubarak has ruled the country for over a generation and, according to millions of young Egyptians, has denied his people many of the rights and civil liberties enjoyed in Western nations. In the original story carried by The Bennington Vale Evening Transcript, those close to Mubarak claimed that he responded to calls for his resignation -- and then demands for an explanation of why he failed to tender one -- with the phrase “I’d prefer not to.”

Ironically, Hosni Mubarak found himself out of a job Friday after the vice president begged him to remain in power. Mubarak, again, replied, “I’d prefer not to.”

Regis Ketamine, a leading sociologist at San Narciso College, said that it’s difficult to understand Mubarak’s compulsive need to continue employing only this response to any question asked of him. As a result, Ketamine is postulating a new law, which he is planning to publish in an upcoming study.

“I’m calling it Bartleby’s Law,” Ketamine explained. “It seems to be born from a sense of moral depletion and existential dread, where the subject, completely bereft of all desires -- both positive and negative -- wants nothing, does nothing, and eventually balloons into a fat, wretched troglodyte with only a superficial resemblance to a sentient being. Just like Ron Jeremy.”

Historians say that the assassination of Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar El Sadat, may have been a strong influence. Sadat was a man of large ideas, progress, and bold change, which eventually led to his violent death. Having risen to power in Sadat’s bloody aftermath, Mubarak may have decided that attempting to alter the status quo was a dangerous practice to be avoided at all costs.

“In the end,” Ketamine continued, “it really doesn’t matter. If this spiritual affliction runs it course, Mubarak will soon be denying food, shelter, work, everything. He’ll just keep saying, ‘I’d prefer not to,’ until someone finds his unwashed, bloated corpse on the yard of ranch-style home in San Fernando.”