Missed It By That Much
I was in this Irish bar this one time, playing darts. Oh, man we were hittin’ em, and hitting the taps a bit harder than usual, too. One of my mates, Pat, got a few too many in him, pulled off his shirt, started beating his chest a bit, and declared, “We could declare war on Mexico right now, and we’d win.”
“That’s kinda silly, Pat,” I said. Mexico has an air force, you know. Nothing much, but they’ve got a couple dozen planes, at least.”
Pat had another drink and said,”Well, we could rent a plane down at the airstrip and bring a couple of fowling pieces and take on those lot. I say bring ’em on.”
“Pat, they’ve got a navy down there, too, you know. Nothing much, but it’s gotta have a few dozen warships, at least.”
“Oh, you know me and the lads could get out the bass boat and lug a few deer rifles with us down to the quay and take care of that lot, too.”
“You know, they’ve even got ballistic missiles of some sort they could lob at us, Pat. Not nuclear or anything, but nothing to sneeze at, I’m sure.”
Pat was warming up to the topic now, and bellowed, “Oh, I’ll be sure to bring an ash can lid and a hurling stick with me when I invade, to fend off the splosions while I’m cracking their noggins.”
I tried one last gambit. “Pat, they’ve got something on the order of 250,000 regular Joes, or regular Joses, at any rate, in their infantry. You don’t really think this group of drunkards in an Irish bar can handle that, do you?”
Pat grew quiet, like he was turning something over in his mind that had gotten stuck in the back, and he wanted to shake it loose. Then he smiled a little, and said, “Maybe you’re right, after all. Maybe we shouldn’t declare war on Mexico. There’s no way we can afford to feed 250,000 prisoners of war.”