The duck situation at the Alamo took a turn for the worse. The feathered welfare wards multiplied in number and girth.

Close observation revealed two causes: a Spanish infatuation with feeding the beasts, and prohibitions against the discharge of firearms within city limits, an assault upon our Second Amendment right to free our property of bird droppings.

Additionally, the fowls seemed drawn to Mexican accordion music, which wafted romantically day and night from boomboxes throughout the compound.

It drove the ducks to promiscuity. Under its influence, the mutant creatures engaged in unspeakable acts.

The horror! The horror!

The scene cannot here be described, except to say it appears as ridiculous as sex among humans, about which I had been told.

I instructed Dick to summon reinforcements. He dialed 9-1-1 to bring in the Baptists.

If the Baptists failed, he was to summon the Mormons and Jews. If the compound needed purging with maximum blood and body parts, he was to call the Republicans, Democrats and Muslims, who would eventually kill each other, after which Dick and I would resurface, unbox the bourbon, shew into the daylight a bevy of winsome wenches, then reoccupy the Alamo and commence to make like ducks, about which we had been told.

We would like to take credit for devising this plan, but we cannot. We borrowed the FEMA blueprint for select members of the ruling oligarchy, the devious devils. We die, they make like ducks.

Meanwhile, work beckoned.

The imitation sports car needed fuel. At the neighborhood trading post, the pump spat and stopped. I pushed a "call" button and got a crackling message from aliens. There is life out there.

With the binoculars I found the cashier in a building across a simmering expanse of asphalt, a minefield of bubble gum, melted ice cream and unidentified flying objects.

There was a line of three inside, citizens of leisure at 9 a.m. A plump Spanish woman, language challenged, bought lottery tickets. A lean black youth, pants sagged in defiant fashion, bought four beers. A weathered white man, pajama-clad in flip-flops and Tweety Bird T-shirt, got coffee and cookies with a food-stamp card.

One of the Marxist presidential candidates referenced such a wonder of diversity last week. The Hildebeast said it is time to replace an "on your own" society with one of "shared prosperity." In other words, replace individual freedom with communism.

I suspected those three had already achieved shared prosperity. We work and prosper, relatively speaking, and they share.

Clinging to an ideology of another age, the tired totalitarianism of the gilded class, all the candidates propose more of the same. Reward the producers who feed and clothe them by confiscating their property. After skimming off the cut for themselves and their allies, they spread a few scraps as shared prosperity.

When the pump worked, the price of gas got my attention. More shared prosperity. The oil companies had delayed refinery expansion, The New York Times reported, after learning of the federal ethanol scheme. No need to invest in oil refineries when ethanol subsidies are on the way.

We pay, they share.

By sunset, shared prosperity infected the Alamo. The amigos plowed the grounds to plant corn.

This served two purposes, Jose observed: cash in on the ethanol windfall; produce more feed for the ducks.

Jose knows the game.

Witness the miracle of shared prosperity. Ducks appeared from distant fields to feed at the Alamo trough. The corn and energy rackets wallowed in cash.

Dick and I responded as best we could. We hosed duck poop off the Alamo and considered second jobs to pay for it all.

Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at [email protected]. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.