Of Governments, Mice, and Ineptitude (pp169-p171)

(Setting:  Nobody in the government can figure out how to kill a mouse, until they cleverly decide to create an agency to protect it at all costs.)

They reached the cafeteria and stood in line to see which line to stand in. After filling their trays, the Honcho charged their food to his campaign account. As they sat down, he said, "I heard there was a big explosion in the National Archives. What happened?"

"They had a slight problem with a mouse. Crafty sonofabitch. Probably a communist. It routinely scared the secretaries. The janitors tried to catch it by setting a trap with a cracker on the trip wire. The mouse ate the cracker without setting off the trap. They put two traps out the next night, one with a cracker, the other with peanut butter."

"Did they catch the mouse?"

"No", replied Freeman. "The mouse not only ate the cracker, he covered it with peanut butter from the other trap without setting off either one! The janitors were humiliated. So, the very next night, they tied a cracker to the trip wire with twine."

"Then did they catch the mouse?"

"No, but the mouse left a thank you note, which gave them a handwriting sample to go on. With their reputations in jeopardy, the janitors called in the heavy artillery."

The Honcho chuckled. "They asked the Army Corp. of Engineers to blow the mouse to smithereens with a Howitzer?"

Freeman choked on his doughnut. "It's rude to let someone tell a funny story when you've already heard the punch line."

"I was joking."

"Maybe you were, but the janitors weren't. They wanted their mouse in the worst way, which is exactly how they went about it. The Army rolled a Howitzer up to the basement window of the Archives and fired a live shell. The subsequent explosion scattered paper and microfiche for blocks, covering the ground with four inches of Congressional Record fragments. The road crews mistook this confetti for snow and called in sick, so that they could plow the streets later on overtime."

"I’m really pissed off", growled the Honcho.

"You’re emotionally attached to the Congressional Record?"

"No. I'm glad it was shredded. It's tedious enough legislating the drivel that it reports, much less reading about it afterward. I'm pissed because the Army Corp. of Engineers was supposed to be landscaping my private estate, rather than blowing up the Archives. So, did they finally get their mouse?"

"Negative", replied Freeman. "When they searched the rubble, they found no trace of a mouse carcass. Turns out someone from the SPCA tipped the rodent off about the janitors' plans. The feisty critter hid in the Smithsonian basement with his buddies, until the fire was snuffed out. Then he made a triumphal return."

"So they never got him?"

"Actually, they did."

"Did they go nuclear?"

"No. They used an even more devastating weapon. They turned our bureaucracy loose on it. They created a federal agency whose sole charter was to protect the life of this particular mouse at all costs. The agency had a ten million dollar budget, a staff of mouse protection experts, and the usual approval to violate the Constitution."

"What happened?"

"The plan was successful. The mouse died of unknown causes two days later."

"What happened to the agency created to protect the mouse?"

"The same thing that happens to all government agencies that fail. They doubled its budget, broadened its mission, and gave lifetime appointments to its senior administrators, who blamed their previous failures on someone named 'society'".