by Catherine Chandler

“Canadian beavers chomp down town’s internet”
—BBC

We dwellers in a B.C. town
woke up to find the Net was down.
No Instagram. No Twitter feed.
No Facebook. We were miffed, indeed.

We all put in a friendly call
(we are Canadians, after all)
to Telus, who relieved us of
our patriotic beaver love.

In an attempt to build a home,
our mascot burrowed through the loam,
then with his emblematic teeth
he chewed right through the cable sheath.

By afternoon, the Net was back
from its environmental hack.
And though the beavers were at fault,
we took it with a grain of salt.

For though it wasn’t front-page news
of daily horrors (you-know-who’s),
the incident at Tumbler Ridge
had made us chuckle, just a smidge.