So, one cannibal says to another cannibal, “I don’t like your uncle.” The other cannibal says, “Then just eat the noodles.”

It must be getting harder to scare the American pubic these days. Donald Trump’s speeches are seasoned with stories about man-eating sharks and gruesome violent attacks by illegal immigrants. His State of the Union Address was so full of blood and terror, it was more like “Tales From the Crypt.” I was expecting him to shine a flashlight under his chin like our old scoutmaster, telling horror stories by the campfire. During a presidential debate with Kamala Harris, Trump tried to shock us with fake stories of ravenous Haitians in Ohio who are “eating the dogs! Eating the cats!”

It must have been a disappointment when that juicy tidbit of fabricated horror failed to land with his audience. Nevertheless, Trump continues to trot out his old hits. He insists other countries are opening their prison cells and “insane asylums”, sending criminals like “the late great Hannibal Lecter” to prey upon our citizens.

Of course, Mr. Lecter is a fictional character from the movie Silence of the Lambs whose defining characteristic is that he’s a cannibal. He’s a pretty scary guy. But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has raised the stakes. In June, she told Fox News reporter Jesse Watters a story of cannibalism that was unbelievably horrific. It was unbelievable because, well, nobody believed her. And because it isn’t true.

Secretary Noem claimed she heard from an air marshal that one of the immigrants being deported on a flight from the US “…tried to eat his own arms.” She went on, “He called himself a cannibal, ate other people and ate himself!” Which may explain why there is no evidence to support her claim because there’s no, um, leftovers. The idea that an immigrant could be so desperate as to eat his own arms indicates how insane and dangerous these people are. Or how bad the in-flight meals are on Spirit Airlines. “What—beef stroganoff again? I’d rather eat my own arms!”

When you think about it, eating yourself must be subject to the law of diminishing returns. Sure, at first it seems satisfying. Then, at some point, you realize you’re not actually adding anything. So why did Kristi Noem’s cannibal stop eating his arms. Probably he just became, um, full of himself.

True cannibalism is a rare occurrence. There was Albert Fish, the “Brooklyn Vampire” back in the 1920s and 1930s. There was Mark Latunski (2019), convicted of the murder and partial ingesting of a man called Kevin Bacon (no, not the actor). (Did he make a Kevin Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich?).

Back in the 17th Century, there was something called “corpse medicine” in which powdered mummies were prescribed by doctors to treat epilepsy or bleeding. (Let’s hope RFK Jr. never hears about this.) And there was “The King’s Drops” made from powdered human skulls, mixed with alcohol. Could this be the fate of late-night comedians who criticize the president? Trump, who has no sense of humor might ask: Does this taste FUNNY to you?