Humor by DAR

Missile Crisis (A True Story)

Dear Marshall,

I trust you are enjoying camp. I have some news to share with you, so I hope you are sitting down.

Remember the 90 mm. anti-aircraft missile grenade your big brother Alex assured you was completely safe when he sent it to you from France earlier this summer before you left for camp? The one you were juggling around the kitchen and I wanted to check out to make sure it wasn't loaded? And you said "Dad, don't be such a wimp?" Remember?

Well, I thought I’d check it out anyway. So I threw it in the car and drove it to the local police station and brought it in and four or five cops immediately turned blue. "Put it down right there and don't make a move," they said, meanwhile pointing four or five nasty looking revolvers at me. Feeling rather bashful in my summer shorts and tee shirt, I started to explain. "You see, my 15 year old son Alex was traveling with his mother in France this summer looking for the perfect present for his 11 year old brother Marshall and he found this completely safe 90 mm. anti-aircraft missile grenade in a flea market in Grasse. Pretty cool for ten francs, eh?"

"How'd he get it here?" they demanded.

"Regular airmail," I told them. "He just put it in a fruit box and covered the box with brown paper and dropped it in a post office slot. Et voila."

"Voila?" the police said. "Voila over the ocean? Voila in a jet?"

"Yup," I said proudly. "Pretty enterprising, eh?"

"Take it out of here now," the policemen suggested.

So I tossed it in the back seat and drove it to the local National Guard post and darned if I didn't get the same reaction there.

"No, you don't understand," I said with a lot of patience. "The flea market vender assured my son that it's been dead for years but I thought I'd just make sure so I'm letting you check it out. But just to show you how safe it is I'll bang it on this table --"

At which point 18 National Guardsmen tackled me and convinced me not to bang it on the table.

"See this pin in here?" They pointed with a yardstick, not daring to touch. "Never been fired."

"Oh," I said.

"It could've blown up your house and everybody within 50 yards," they explained.

"I see."

"Not to mention the plane it flew in from France, and all the passengers."

"Yes, quite," I said.

"But don't worry, we'll get the Air Force to detonate it for you," they said.

"That would be kind of you," I said. And drove fairly quickly to the local post office with a number of questions in mind. To wit:

How is a fruit box wrapped in brown paper screened for international mail?

According to Ken McFadden, General Manager of International and Military Mail Operations Division of the U.S. Post Office in Washington, it's generally not. "Some countries have export controls, but most don't. It varies from country to country, depending on the threat assessment."

There are no worldwide standards?

"A variety of groups are looking into the question of standardizing regulations. But at the present time, there are no worldwide standards."

Who transports such packages?

"Not having aircraft of their own, the post office usually contracts with commercial airliners of the country-of-origin."

A passenger airline?

"Yes."

What happens when it gets to America?

"It goes to one of several International Exchange Offices as the first point of entry, where it may or not will be subject to an on-site customs inspection before being turned over to the U.S. Postal Service for delivery."

So a fruit box wrapped in brown paper is not necessarily inspected in either the country-of-origin or the U.S.?

"Not necessarily. It's like anything else in life, you can't screen 100 per cent."

And so, Marshall, my question to you is: At any given moment, how are big brothers, wimpy fathers, and innocent airline passengers to know they are not sitting atop a live missile grenade or to any other metaphor you might choose to use for misguided brotherly love?

Answer: They aren't.

Yours,

Dad

P.S. How's your juggling?