the soldier demanded.
Frank Jones slowly roused himself enough to throw back the bedclothes and face the morning sun. He shakily got himself into a bathrobe and slippers and slothed into the kitchen, where a fresh cup of coffee, a danish, and the morning paper were already awaiting his arrival.
A few sips of coffee revived him enough to glance at the headlines. Printed in bold letters across the top of the page, he was startled to read the headline: "RUSSIA DECLARES WAR ON FRANK JONES".
He read the headline over four times trying to make sense of it, and was about to try again when he was interupted by the doorbell. Gratefull for a distraction, and confident that the newspaper would make more sense when he came back to it, Frank Jones walked to the front door and opened it.
Outside a half dozen journalists elbowed each other and each other's camera crews out of their way as they tried to get Frank Jones's attention to answer their questions.
"Will you retaliate?"
"Have you mobilized your armies?"
"How will you respond to a nuclear strike?"
"Have you engaged your missile defense systems?"
"Have you maintained diplomatic contact with the Soviets?"
Frank Jones was in no mood to deal with strangers first thing in the morning on his day off from work. He shut the door and locked it.
Frank Jones was beginning to feel worried now. He didn't have any armies or missile defense systems, did he? No, not that he remembered. There was some equipment in the corner of the garage, covered with a tarp that he couldn't remember... oh yes, that was the lawn mower he was supposed to repair. Had he? No, he had bought a new one instead, but refused to give up on the carcass under the tarp. He couldn't admit defeat, it would be too much of a blow to his self-image as a handy-man. So the broken mower remained in its corner, year after year.
Missiles, missiles, missiles. Was there anything else that he had forgotten? He wandered into the garage and began poking around old boxes and shelves. No, nothing in terms of military hardware came to light. Maybe a pointy stick in among the broken rakes, but that was all.
Wasn't his cousin Joe Smith just telling him last weekend, at the barbeque, that he should invest in a missile defense system? What had he said? Oh, no, he had been talking about vinyl siding for the house. Frank Jones had to admit he was right about that from a purely practical view, but he couldn't stand to see such a mechanical, industrial looking house. Houses were supposed to be made out of wood. Or brick.
No, Frank Jones felt very strongly that he would not cover his home in vinyl siding. He would rather endure the trouble and expense of an annual painting!
Just then a shriek filled the air, and a surface-to-surface missile blew up his neighbor Mr. Brown's two-story one-and-a-half-bath attached-garage wired-for-cable ranch house. Frank Jones wondered what that would do to neighborhood property values. Perhaps he should try to buy the now-empty lot and add it to his own property. An interesting thought. Frank Jones smiled to himself, proud of his ability to quickly assess an unexpected situation and find an advantageous angle.
He absentmindedly left his garage and began walking around the side of the house, dodging the occasional burning debris from Mr. Brown's ex-house, daydreaming of what he would do with his soon-to-be new property.
He was brought out of his fantasy world by the sudden appearence of a machine gun being pointed at him by a Russian paratrooper who had just landed in the garden along the side of the house.
the soldier demanded.
"I'm sorry, what was that? Are you trying to sell me something? I hope you don't think you're going to sell me vinyl siding!"
The Russian soldier said nothing but took a few steps towards Frank Jones, gun held forward in a most menacing fashion.
Just then a shot rang out and the Russian soldier was thrown to the ground at Frank Jones's feet, with a gaping hole where his chest used to be. Frank Jones looked up at the second floor window where his wife was still waving her shotgun in the air, looking for more targets.
"Land in my rose bushes will you! Would you look at that, Frank! Can you see if he damaged them at all? Mrs. Johnson always used to say the Russians were impolite, and we never believed her. Well I certainly do now!"
Frank Jones looked over the rose bushes and didn't see any real damage. "They look ok." He told he wife.
"They'd better be!" She glared at the soldier's corpse, then disappeared inside.
Frank Jones chuckled to himself. "She sure does take her gardening seriously!"
Stepping over the corpse, Frank Jones made a mental note to move the body to the mulch pile before it started decomposing. He smiled at the thought of the enriching nutriants his garden with gain from this.
The smile left his face the next instant however, as he walked around the corner of the garage into the back yard. He jumped back behind the Azalia bush, and peered carefully around the corner, trying not to be seen. His neighbor Mr. Stevenson was standing in his back yard, stark naked, pissing on the giant Oak tree that towered over both of their yards.
Frank Jones swore under his breath and stared in amazement at this unbelievable sight.
As soon as Mr. Stevenson had finished peeing and had disappeared back into his own house, Frank Jones ran out to the tree and stared in utter disbelief at the dark stain of urine running down the side of the tree.
"This is my tree!" Frank Jones thought to himself, in unrestrained anger, as he pulled down his own pants and began over-writing his neighbor's scent with his own marking.
A Mig fighter jet flew by a few times, while the pilot tried to decide if a half-naked man peeing on a tree was a legitimate military target as defined by the Geneva Convention, but Frank Jones paid it no mind. He had more important matters to attend to.