Former president George W. Bush said he was eating souffle at a restaurant with his wife and friends when President Obama called with the Osama bin Laden news.

"I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies," Bush said Wednesday at a conference of hedge fund managers in Las Vegas.

"What? Well, yes -- perhaps there was some fudging to manipulate public perception," Bush said, raising a tweezered eyebrow and straightening the folds of his Issey Miyake caftan. "Okay, I confess: we lied our flowery kimonos off. Why, I remember having to wear these horrid overalls and pretend to clear scrub brush on the ranch! God, how Cecil laughed. I broke three nails, and barely made it to my pomegranate-ginger body scrub."