The timing could not have been worse. Just before she was scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama HIMSELF, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has had to undergo emergency dental surgery which has now left her speaking with an American accent.

“Is she making fun of me or something?” a puzzled President Obama asked his staff shortly after her arrival. “Where’d that weird-ass twang come from?”

But after a short consultation, Washington and Berlin decided to continue with the three-day summit anyway, in the vain hope that it will project to the world a close working relationship and might somehow bolster their failing transatlantic partnership, American accent or not. Washington is concerned about Germany’s recent tendancy to opt for bizarre Alleingänge (solo runs) and it’s increasing lack of ambition within the European Union, Berlin preferring to cultivate bilateral ties to major developing economies like China and India instead.

“It’s not so much the goofy accent,” one White House aide told journalists later. “It’s more that eerie way she’ll say one thing and then do something completely different.”

“I don’t feel different inside at all,” a smiling Merkel told reporters with what appeared to be a cross between a thick Texas and a ferocious Massachusetts accent. “I’m the same old me I ever was.”

“Es ist ja nichts Schlimmes, einen ausländischen Akzent zu haben.”