Photo courtesy of Mike Kennedy

So, what do you do when a marmot crawls into the undercarriage of your car and refuses to leave? If you're Councilman Mike Kennedy, you call together a crack team of highly technical and creative colleagues -- and then poke, prod, honk at, and drive around for three hours in a desperate attempt to dislodge the varmint. Which was more humane than the sage advice given to Mike by Sheriff Rocky Watson: "Shoot it." In a phone call on another matter, Mike mentioned the marmot problem. And Demo-turned-Repub Rocky concluded immediately that the critter was a Democrat and deserving of death after he heard that the marmot had a "foul temper." Earlier, a Demo in the marmot posse had concluded that the animal was a Republican for ignoring reasonable demands that it get out of the car. In an e-mail to Huckleberries, Mike said, "So the political affiliation of the marmot remains undetermined." The marmot was finally driven out without permanent damage to the car. "I now know just how much organic material -- solid and liquid -- a frightened marmot can create when trapped in an engine block," Mike concluded. "Not pretty." See another shot of the marmot in comments section.

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