No shutdown of their appetites

Disgusted with a government shutdown that’s gone well into its second week, the squirrels of Washington, D.C., are taking the country back, one tomato at a time.

Stubborn, indolent Democrats and Republicans who populate Congress have shown very little fruits for their equally paltry labors but a lively bipartisan bunch of eastern grays has been enjoying the best fruits of all – the Presidential tomatoes – straight off the Pennsylvania Avenue vine.

And it's all occurred while federally funded gardeners are furloughed, reaping only the worst of a bumper crop of shame. Since the start of the shutdown earlier this month, no one has been paid to clean up here, so Washington, D.C.’s squirrels, ever the patriots, have stepped up to the plate. And cleaned that plate well.

Everywhere there are tell-tale toothmarks in the Presidential peppers. In the White House garden, “squash” is no longer a crop but an action verb enacted by brazen bushytails. And as the nation’s debt crisis threatens to mushroom, chanterelles and portobellos are having their caps raised, again and again.

And all the while, Congress sits and vegetates.

A greater crisis looms, America, and it is a direct result of this horticultural coup d’etat: Consider the now-looming threat of squirrel obesity facing our nation as this Harvest Without End continues, and will continue ad infinitum, until Congress takes some action to end it along with the shutdown.

Otherwise, we shall picture soon a nation of squirrels with all the health issues concomitant with binge-eating and obesity, though not a single one of them even qualifies to receive treatment under Obamacare.

The squirrels will not stop until they press some gnawing sense of reality into our lawmakers. We can be sure of it. Because once the White House garden is finally devoid of anything but remnants of the fertilizer so pervasive throughout our nation's capital, the squirrels will discover they are, sadly, no different from most American citizens:

Completely fed up.