Yesterday we brought you the heart-wrenching story of Leslie (Les) Firgotin one of our researcher/photographers stranded in Yellowstone National Park due to the furloughing of park employees who had the keys to let her out of the park. Faced with dangers on every side she gamely attempts to stay alive amidst the chaos swirling about our great national parks. We saw that she had lost one of her largest food sources, the red leaves of the “Inritus Irritus” plant that was taken over by a large hairy slavering bear and her only hope was to make it to the main entrance at West Yellowstone where one of our contacts was going to heave a sandwich over the barrier to her.

Apparently she didn’t make it to the food drop or food heave as it were, and we lost contact with her at that time. We have gotten word from some congressional interns who had been air dropped into the park to erect these signs along the highways to let other strandees know what might be in store for them, that they may have found some sign of Les or at least remnants of her.

Very near a large patch of shrubbery with red leaves (Inritus Irritus we bet) they found a watch band with tooth marks on it, a notebook with the word help written in it over 800 times with tooth marks on it, a headband with “The Institute” embroidered on it, with tooth marks on it, an eye patch with tooth marks on it, we don’t think that was hers as she isn’t wearing one in our induction pictures of her, and most alarmingly nearly 1800 spent shell casings for a .357 littered around the area, many with tooth marks on them. We fear she may have run into trouble. As indicative as all the evidence is we haven’t given up on our girl Les. We think she’s a tuffy and will come through with some light-hearted stories to tell.

According to these interns they have been coerced into installing these signs with the promise that if they did a good enough job they may be released to their families after this debacle is over. They have been told by the powers that be that we, the country, are in “Dire Straights”. Although we here at the Institute pride ourselves on being arrogantly well-educated, at least to the standards of today, we had thought that the dire straights was a place off the coast of Africa where you shipwrecked, then were eaten, and your bones sold for fertilizer. Being as well-educated as we are we never once thought of the dire straights as a band. And still don’t actually. So we looked it up. One of our researches had and old paperback dictionary and although many of the pages are missing we found the following definition for “Dire Straights”

Dire straights n.

1. Abbr. Str. or St. A narrow channel joining two larger bodies of water. Often used in the plural with a singular verb.

2. A position of difficulty, perplexity, distress, or need. Often used in the plural: in desperate straits.

adj.

1. a. Difficult; stressful.

b.Having or marked by limited funds or resources.

2.Archaic a.Narrow.

b.Affording little space or room; confined.

c.Fitting tightly; constricted.

3.Archaic Strict, rigid, or righteous.

Well that sure as hell sounds like what is going on. Since learning this definition we have added the following items to our acquisition list and begun hoarding food, ammunition and Claymores. And that really good shrimp cocktail sauce with the horseradish in it. That stuff is so good. We don’t want to be caught in Dire Straights here.

Now that events have taken a turn for the worse we are springing into action. There will be a rescue team leaving for Yellowstone any day now, we just need to locate some gas money and a van that will start and we’re up there. We will be contacting our congressional representatives and demanding that they take immediate action and if none is forthcoming in the weeks ahead, I as director and CEO of the Institute, have given our team instructions to step over the barrier blocking entrance to the park and go get our girl. The hell with those doorknobs in Washington, we’ll just handle it. I’m sorry America that things have come to this, but enough is enough. Our new battle cry is “What’s up with Les?” and we won’t rest until we have her back in our bosom again. If you want to join us in our rescue attempt, a little donation in the form of those new $100 bills would be nice. Then we could order some bumper stickers, maybe get some of those cool trailers the feds bring in for our team to stay in, anything would help. But mostly lets just remember Les.