“Sources” are important, whether in mundane conversations or in posts on social media. I try to footnote posts in my blog and on “X” (formerly twitter) and, if a post is a work of satire [FN1], I sometimes label it as such, unless omission of that label [FN2] is unnecessary. 1/8

Last evening, I realized that a noise emanating from a desk drawer was from a flip-phone. The number is known to few because it’s a flip-phone, tossed aside for years. I dug it out, but did not recognize the number on the screen. The voice on the other end of the line was raspy. 2/8

CALLER: You don’t know who I am. I don’t have much time. Listen: there’s things you oughta know.
ME: As a general matter, sure.
CALLER: Just up. The trial in New York. It’s a whole line-of-succession thing. These are facts. That kid don’t look like Donnie. 3/8

ME: People are supposed to leave that kid alone.
CALLER: Real convenient,. Ain’t it? So nobody asks questions.
ME: No one disputes who the mother is. That makes him a real son of a ... 4/8

CALLER: Don’t interrupt. They put him in the middle of things & tried to get him to be a delegate to the party convention. He’s a public figure.
ME: There’s been no dispute about paternity.
CALLER: And there wasn’t in them Omen movies, either. 5/8

ME: So you’re saying he’s also a bas ....
CALLER: I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ except his daddy’ll put him in power. And soon. You speak Russian? Look at the pictures.
That was it. I will not dignify salacious gossip by raising any such allegations. I will say that, after looking at the pictures... 6/8

Footnotes:
FN1. A matter is “satire” that uses “irony, sarcasm, ridicule, etc., in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.” The American College Dictionary, 1962 ed., p. 1078. 7/8

Footnotes:
FN2. Amongst reasons for such an omission would be a construct of reductio ab absurdum: “reduction to an absurdity; the refutation of a proposition by demonstrating the absurd the absurd inevitable conclusion to which it would logically lead.” Id., p. 1016. 8/8