Remember in Logan's Run, when the computer tells the 25-year-old Sandman that he has to go undercover to capture the 29-year-old runners (who are fleeing Carousel, the laser-light show that kills), and all of a sudden the red light on his own hand starts blinking and he realizes he's just lost four years? That's kind of what I imagine happening the moment a President steps into the White House. They all go into the presidency as vital, robust young men, and emerge as weird zombie versions of themselves.

Nick says it's something in the White House water, and that if the President would just drink bottled instead, he'd be fine.

Naturally, the common explanation for this accelerated decrepitude is that the President has the metaphorical weight of the world on his shoulders. I don't buy this. My theory is that, on both a physical and metaphysical level, presidents are born and die within their terms. They're like Rutger Hauer replicants, programmed to live a mere 48 months (unless granted the reprieve of an additional term, of course). Their bodies proceed with the aging process as if this is their total expected life span—the first year is all youthful enthusiasm; the second year you're buying Jaguars and scoping out college girls; the third year you're eating Jell-o for every meal; and the fourth year, well, you look like death. It's sort of like the ratio of dog years to people years. Year against year, Nixon aged faster while he was in office than Checkers ever did. But then, Checkers never got to go to China.

At any rate, with the next election looming, I can't help imagining what this current crop of candidates would look like when churned through the White House aging machine. Bush already looks like Tollund Man after a three-day bender. John Edwards, with his boyish good looks, may be transformed overnight into a doddering Charlton Heston (sans gun fetish, I hope). Lieberman may come out looking like Strom Thurmond—after burial. Kerry could probably age with some dignity, sort of a salty Hugh Hefner type, but I imagine Dean as Ben Gunn from Treasure Island, complete with long, tangled white hair, a torn robe, and a crazed expression. As for Kucinich, I picture him huddled over a letter opener in the Oval Office, whispering "my Precious" over and over again.

Scary, scary stuff.

President or not, though, aging is a fate we all must contend with. One day I'll have to go on Carousel, too. (That is, if the Sandman can catch me—I've been running marathons in my spare time.)