A bell tolled once as a mysterious hooded spirit plucked me away from "The Jerry Springer Show" just as some guy was about to admit to his girlfriend that he was having an affair with a space alien.

Together, the spirit and I whisked forward to the year 2025.

In Washington, D.C., I found myself at a press conference being held by President Michael Jackson (who did not die, but had gone into hiding with Elvis) to announce he was changing the name of the nation's capital to Funkytown.

This was followed by Jackson placing the star atop the national Christmas tree, then celebrating the official start of the holidays by dangling small children from the scaffolding.

Traveling in the first presidential motorcade ever to be made up entirely of go-carts, we went to Jackson's newest amusement park, Neverland East. This had been the Pentagon until the president transformed it into a world of fantasy and fiction (which, come to think of it, isn't that big a change).

In California, O.J. Simpson met with reporters on the 16th green at Pebble Beach to announce that he's still working to solve his ex-wife's murder, as well as trying to correct his slice, which causes the ball to hook hard to the left.

Poverty in America is a thing of the past. After the abolition of welfare and unemployment compensation by Congress in 2011, all of the nation's poor were sent to government relocation camps to be housed, fed and processed into gourmet treats for wealthy pet owners.

Major industry has all relocated to the Third World, but Americans can still find plenty of jobs in the thriving latte industry.

A first-class postage stamp costs $11.95, but complaints have diminished to near zero since the U.S. Postal Service issued firearms to its clerks and carriers. In keeping with the high prices, the stamps bear the likenesses of such famous Americans as John Dillinger, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde and Bernie Madoff.

Meanwhile in Lancaster County, with the exception of ongoing road repair, nothing is the same. Farmland has disappeared after the final 10 acres of open land were paved over, and "the Garden Spot of America" is now touted as "the nation's largest parking lot."

The Amish are still with us, but with the land gone, they no longer farm and have sought other careers. Some have created a total Amish experience, including an amusement park and hotel called Wootzer Verlt, where guests are awakened at 4 a.m. so they can milk life-like "cahs" and "slop the picks" before sitting down to a plate of "schnitz und knepp" and a "muck" of coffee.

A few Amish starred on a new reality TV show, "Shushel mit Schnickelhauber," which followed Plain families who set out to tour the U.S. in buggies. (The show was short-lived — because it took the cast three months to travel just from Lancaster to Cleveland, viewers got bored and voted all of them off.)

The remaining Amish can be seen along eight-lane Route 340, the Intercourse Expressway, selling quilts, apple butter, eck nootles, fresh bret and lepp cakes, while not posing for tourist photos.

Suddenly I'm clinging desperately to the black-robed figure, crying "No, spirit, no! I'm not the man I was. I will honor Christmas all year long. It's true that men's deeds foreshadow certain ends, but if the deeds be modified, surely the ends must change. I will mend my ways and work to erase this bleak future. Tell me it's not too late."

The figure throws off its hood, and I moan in despair. The Spirit of Christmas Future is Sarah Palin.

As Tiny Tim might have said, "God help us, everyone."

lalexander@lnpnews.com