THE SQUIRRELS HAVE THE BOMB

By Templeton Steele

Everyone at the coffee shop was talking about the missile that had appeared overnight in the park. This was not just any missile: It was an intercontinental ballistic missile, with multiple nuclear warheads. And, as the townsfolk noted with no small amount of concern, the missile seemed to belong to a large family of squirrels.

No one knew much about these squirrels. They buried nuts, they dug up nuts, they scurried around – that was pretty much it. But now they also had a weapon of mass destruction, and while it seemed unlikely that the squirrels knew how to use it, no one was willing to rule out the possibility. After all, Bucky Johnson said, he had sealed up his attic last winter tight as a sumbitch, and they still found a way in.

A gloom settled in over the coffee shop. How this missile business would affect next weekend's Acorn Festival was anyone's guess.

(Author and retired three-star general Templeton Steele whiled away many an hour beneath Cheyenne Mountain with a bottle of Yukon Jack.)