Having spent the past week under a cloud of suspicion, Miss America took last week off to do what her publicist called a “recharging of the batteries.”

Controversy began surrounding the beauty queen when a Sudoku puzzle that had been correctly solved was found in the back of a taxi cab in which she had been riding.

“Of course we were as alarmed as anyone else when we heard this news, but we have been assured by those closest to her and by Miss America herself that she did not, nor could she ever have, solved that puzzle,” said Intelligence Standard Administrator Sam Perlman.

“We are confident now more than ever that the requisite dimwittedness to which the position of Miss America has always been held is intact, and any cloud of suspicion that might have been overhead has now been cleared. I had a conversation with Miss America just over an hour ago and she seemed as dense as the London fog on several fronts. If it makes anybody feel any better, she even asked me which was further away, Florida or the moon. She wanted to know because she can see the moon, but not Florida. So I’m convinced,” he said.

Another piece of information that had been circulated in various daily newspapers but was difficult to officially confirm was that upon exiting the cab, Miss America had no problem calculating the change. Minds were later put at ease when the cabbie, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Miss America thought the fare display on the dash of the cab was a clock and that since it read 22.45 that it must be on military time.

“I rest my case. She thought the fare box was a clock. There is no possible way that she solved that Sudoku puzzle. She would more likely have seen it and thought it was some kind of complex matrix with which she is not yet familiar,” said Perlman.