14 DAYS BEFORE THE BOMB

"Ever since all of us here started using stimulant packs 3 times-a-day, we started fighting the Chinese instead of trying to reason with those crazies, and the fifty-nine states in the union are all deciding to make nice again, all of us in the house have jobs and are in wonderful spirits." said John. "Why, just the other day, Mindy was telling me all how nice things have been lately compared with how things were five years ago. What did you say again Mindy?"

Mindy was a thirty six year old blonde woman who was heavily padded with make-up. Unbeknownst to her, this habit made her look even more like a thirty-six year old, rather than a twenty-five year old, as she presumed. "Five years ago," Mindy  began, "nobody in this entire county was happy at all! Not even a bit!" She sat down hastily on the plastic lawn chair in the corner of the living room and it teetered backwards, then forwards again. "But by God, if life isn't great now! There's always something on the news to watch, everyone has money and can finally afford to eat in restaurants on Friday nights again, and the Dodgers finally broke their hundred year World Series drought! If this isn't the life, what is!"

Grandpa was sitting in the corner staring gravely at the television set. A blonde woman in her twenties was speaking with a blank expression about the latest offensive in Chinese Alaska. "This girl shouldn't be reading the news," he uttered. He squiggled slightly higher up in his chair. "She doesn't have the slightest idea what the hell she's talking about! I bet she just thinks about what she's going to do after she's done reading the pretty flashing words on the screen. All the while, its 'thousand killed' this, 'ten-thousand killed' that." He put his hand to his mouth and began coughing violently. He lit a cigarette.

"Dad! Don't smoke in the house! Do you want all of your grandkids to get the lung cancer?"

"Lung cancer? Lung cancer is the last thing that these kids have to worry about. Hell, my mom never put stimulant  dust in my cereal and I went through life just fine! Why do you need to be sprinkling that crap on everything? For one thing, it taste terrible."

"I don't know Dad," John interjected. "I think it tastes just fine. It's a bit bitter, so I can see how it might taste bad to someone who likes to eat nothing but sweet things." John's face crinkled into a smile.

"Oh our Daddy always had quite the sweet-tooth, didn't he," Mindy said before smiling and rubbing the old man's shoulder like one would a shaky dog with it's mouth open in a wanting smile.

Grandpa's face spun into a frown as he pushed Mindy's hand off his shoulder. "What? We were talking about your kids!"

"We were?" Mindy said inquisitively.

"Weren't we?" Grandpa asked, now forgetting his original point. Although he remembered he had something very important to say.

The television flashed, "BREAKING NEWS! CHINA INVADES UPPER 14 STATES!"

"Oh no!" John said, looking somewhat flustered. "You don't suppose that they would come into the lower states, would they?"

"We're all dead, thank God" Grandpa said quietly to himself.

One of the children spoke. "Does this mean that I don't have to go to school tommorow?" With this sentence uttered, the rest of the children began to get excited.

"Ya, do we have to go to school tommorow Dad?" John didn't say anything. He was currently going through an experience akin to a lightbulb being turned on that had been stored in a closet for twenty years.