It was the summer of 1949 in New York City. I was standing
just off stage in the Winter Garden Theater waiting for my tap dance number
with the great Gene Kelly. I was regretting that I had missed every rehearsal. The
music started, the curtain went up and the dancing began. Clickety, Clickety,
Clack, Clack, Clack, Clickety……..Clickety, Clack, Click. Oh, Lord, I thought,
the critics were surely going to describe me as having the most arrhythmic feet
in the history of musical theater. In disgust, Gene walked off in the middle of
the number. I was doomed.
With a sudden jerk of my legs, I woke up. It was just a dream.
I was safe in my little cabin deep in the woods of West Virginia …but the
clickety-clacking continued. I rolled over and saw Dooley the Dog furiously
typing on my laptop. (Since my break-up with Anita the Dog Groomer last summer and
our weather induced inactivity this winter his toenails had grown to the point
he could no longer type with the pads of his feet. It was just toenails to plastic
keys, a very annoying sound.)
“Dooley, its 4am!”
“The time of day doesn’t matter, we need a plan and we need
it now,” he barked.
“A plan for what?”
“The invasion”, he said.
An hour later I finally had the whole story. Dooley was
convinced we were about to be invaded by North Korea. Beside the accounts on
the news, he was basing his fear on a recent quadrupling of viewership on our
blog. For the past few days we have been getting an incredible number of hits
on the post “Dooley and I Discuss a Squirrel”. Along with the hits we have been
getting an equal number of spam comments encouraging us to visit certain Asian websites.
Dooley surmised from this surge of spam that the North Koreans were going to launch
a massive cyber-attack using viruses inserted in blogs like ours and then
launch their missiles amidst all the confusion.
Frankly, I still avoid world news and don’t know exactly
what he means when he says N. Korea is capable of launching missiles towards
the United States. Seems a bit bold for such a tiny country, doesn’t it? I told
Dooley even if they have a few missiles I doubt they are much better than those
inaccurate Iraqi Scuds from Desert Storm. If they were to launch toward the
west coast of the U.S. the chances are they would land in Mexico or Canada
anyway.
“Oh, no”, Dooley said, “The threat is real!”
“Dooley, even if they launch missiles, I’m sure our military
could shoot them down.”
“When was the last time you heard of our military successfully
shooting down a nuclear missile headed for the United States?”, he countered.
“…well, never I suppose.”
I humored him, “Good point, Dooley, I guess we should have a
plan. What do you suggest?”
He showed his outline on the laptop:
1. Buy year’s supply of bacon.
2. Learn the following phrases in Korean.
a. We have no
bacon.
b. Take the goats
and chickens, please.
c. We are Canadian.
3. Pair up goats and chickens. Arm them with 8oz. marine air
horns and place them on high ground around the property to watch for missiles
or amphibious assault vehicles on the river.
4. Negotiate with raccoons for night time reconnaissance and
possible guerilla style raids on enemy camps.
5. Since we don’t have time to build a proper bunker,
shutter windows on cabin and put sign on door that says: “No User Serviceable
Parts Inside”.
6. (He didn’t have a 6 yet.)
I don’t know about you, but I will sleep better tonight
knowing Dooley is looking out for America. (I will also sleep better because I plan
to hide the laptop before going to bed.)
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