Tour Guide: We’ve finally reached the Chicxulub crater, everyone, the site of the explosion that killed the dinosaurs.
Kid: Cool! What’s the biggest dinosaur of all time?
Tour Guide: I don’t know. We can all hope to learn a little lesson from the dinosaurs and their extinction today.
Adult: To respect and protect our environment and not litter?
Parent: *nudges kid* To go to sleep on time and listen to your parents?
Tour Guide: Not quite, although *chuckles* maybe if the dinosaurs had listened to the lessons of history before it led to their destruction, they might still be walking the Earth today.
Adult: You don’t mean to say that—
Tour Guide: I do. The dinosaurs died out through the irresponsible proliferation of nuclear weapons, and if we do not choose carefully, the same may happen to us.
*silence from the tour group*
Tour Guide: A nuclear weapon is an explosive device whose destructive force comes from nucl-
Kid: We know what a nuclear weapon is. But you don’t honestly mean to assert that the dinosaurs had modern technology? Also, what is the most dangerous dinosaur?
Parent: I was going to say the same thing – what is the most dangerous dinosaur?
Tour Guide: In one sense, Spinosaurus, or perhaps T-Rex. In another sense, any dinosaur armed with 1.2 megatons of destructive energy would pose a threat to all of dinosaur-kind.
Kid: This is patently ridiculous. Guide, take us to the souvenir shop!
[Chicxulub Nuclear Launch Site, 14:00:59, 66,000,000 years ago]
Mr. Stegosaurus hears the distant roars of the approaching T-Rexes and knows it’s all over. Two thousand enemy warheads have been launched, expected time of impact -7 minutes. By the inescapable, brutally cold logic of mutually assured destruction, the only possible response Mr. Stegosaurus can make is total retaliation. The night sky has turned a dull, bloody red, illuminated by the distant explosions of nuclear fire. The big red phone is ringing on his desk, but he doesn’t pick up. It’s Mrs. Stegosaurus, there’s no use trying to reassure her. A tear rolls down his elongated face as he quietly mouths the words “so long, my love”, and turns the key. The world as he knows it is gone forever.
