Day of the Possum.

Forget this caravan nonsense on our lower border. I have news! The upper border, the one with Canada, the longest border in the world between two countries (and probably the least guarded), is where we need to focus.

The ketchup potato chips were a blatant attack, to be sure, but easily repelled -- or at least they didn't catch on. I haven't seen them lately. No, I am referring to the Maple Front that has just opened, swallowing up one of our national institutions:

Yes! Cheerios has been Maplecized -- the work of Canadian Fifth Columnists!

"Oh, Fred," you scoff. "I'm not scoffing, I'm coughing. Nah, I'm scoffing. Maple proves nothing! Does not maple syrup come from Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire? This could be 100 percent American maple syrup flavoring! After all, this has 'other natural flavors,' so it's clearly not all real maple syrup -- more of a maple-like product, perhaps, like Log Cabin (American as Lincoln!) or Vermont Maid (so Vermonty!). So stuff the paranoia, Fred."

And I reply: Sez you! (I always win arguments with the imaginary voices.) As always we turn to the Cereal Project run by Mr. Breakfast for answers. He does not provide a review of Maple Cheerios, but he writes as follows:

This cereal was first introduced in Canada in 2017 as a special edition product celebrating Canada's 150th anniversary. It came to the U.S. in the fall of 2018.

AHA!

The back of the box has games and some trivia; the latter section notes that it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. You see why they're spreading this kind of talk, right? Two words: Maple. Embargo.

It comes right after getting vast swatches of the U.S. population addicted to their product.

Fortunately I am on the case. While so many are distracted by that mob at our southern border -- which the media tell me are just plucky ragamuffins looking for a chance to mow our lawns and clean our toilets and open fabulous ethnic restaurants -- I am looking north, where the real menace is. Of course their leader, Prime Minster Zoolander, would never openly attack our nation; we outnumber them ten to one and we have a leader who, whatever his faults, likes to fight. But Zoolander has sent his secret operatives to undermine us, using maple and ketchup.

I haven't figured out the details of the plan yet. I think I have a line on the main operative, though. The coded message quando omni flunkus moritati has been traced to a snowback contingent. And there's been this photo of a man who is said to be their leader, who gets the movement to stick together. He is sometimes known as: The Possum.

Keep your eyes peeled, and your stick on the ice, my brothers.