The FBI (short for “Federal Bungling Institution”) reported Monday, under pressure of intense scrutiny from Capitol Hill and the Justice Department, that some 400 firearms and 184 laptop computers were missing or stolen. This inimitable and unenviable record has been a running streak growing over the past several years.

When questioned about this, an FBI official responded by saying, “See, we get confused when people just refer to these things as laptops. We don’t know if they’re asking about computers or you know just about . you know . laptops.”

This news has huge implications. Attorney General John Ashcroft diplomatically stated that he did not wish to “overstate” the significance of these missing interns – I mean, items -but they were definitely cause for concern.

The FBI is also trying to blow this off as something that is getting unnecessary attention, just like their “intense scrutiny” of Congressman Gary Condit in the course of the search for the missing intern. (Monica Lewinsky, though, is home and safe, folks. I think.)

According to them, none of the missing laptops has any information pertaining to the recently spotlighted bungles, like the Hanssen spy case, or the botched investigation of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

As intelligent readers, you have doubtless read between-the-lines and understood that what they’re actually saying is: “The missing laptops have classified information of investigations that we botched up alright. But you guys out there don’t know about it yet.”

As for the firearms, the FBI claims that they are probably in circulation somewhere right now, and that’s why they are unaudited and unaccounted for at the moment.

Duh! Sure they’re in circulation. What with all those trigger-happy maniacs lurking around schools and federal buildings, of course they’re in circulation. And waiting to put some innocent people out of circulation.

And how is this whole situation being dealt with? As any issue relating to the government and its behemoth-sized bureaucracy is dealt with.

The Attorney General has told the Justice Department’s Inspector General to find out how the losses happened.

The Inspector General in turn told the General Maintenance crew of all the FBI buildings he was at a loss to understand how this bungling occurred. The custodians (not of the law, of the buildings) are combing the parks in the D.C. area for any traces of the missing interns.

No, wait. That’s the FBI too, but they’re looking into the parks for only one missing intern, whereas, the custodial staff of the FBI buildings are looking into garbage dumps to see if they can find any of the missing firearms or laptops.

I see a pattern emerging here. Soon, they’ll be hiring lawyers to investigate congressmen about having affairs with these laptops. Although it will be a tough job trying to fit in the firearm angle into a romantic relationship, I think.

Cigars, yes. Firearms, I don’t know. But these politicians are very creative people, I hear.

What I would like to know most though is what exactly is in those laptops. Apart from the motherboard, fatherboard, extended familyboard, chips and salsa, I mean. Maybe if we somehow got those laptops back, we would have all kinds of classified information about all the people on Capitol Hill and their extra-curricular activities.

But when the FBI says something like “we’re not shocked at the numbers (of missing firearms and laptops),” then you begin to think, “what will shock them? Another Timothy McVeigh?” That sounds really terrible, even as a joke.

The FBI seems to believe that investigating people who retired or were fired from the agency and reportedly did not return their firearms will help in locating the missing items.

Somebody send them to an optometrist, please. I mean, how short-sighted can you get, and pose that as an answer to something that’s been a problem for years and will be unless they devise a long-term solution?

Attorney General John Ashcroft has wiser words for them, though. He has asked the Justice Department’s Inspector General (the same guy who’s supervising the park-combers) to design a way to prevent such occurrences. The question that the custodial staff in the FBI is asking is, “do we stop looking in the dumpsters now?”

Narayan Devanathan is a graduate student in journalism and mass communication from Hyderabad, India.