TOPEKA, KANSAS- In the five years since the fall of the World Trade Center towers, we have frittered away our days and nights worrying about the next terror attack on American soil. We have tossed in our dreamless sleep, sacrificed our civil liberties, voted Republican, and even trained ourselves to pee a little at the sound of the CNN "breaking news" sounder with Pavlovian precision. We might have thought that we were doing our part for the War on Terror, but new evidence indicates that we are nowhere near scared enough to prevent bad things from happening.

Airports and military installations have undergone thorough security upgrades, but according to the Department of Homeland Security's own database of high-value targets, hundreds of key infrastructure and resource spots remain at serious risk for attack. In documents submitted to the Congressional committee charged with allocating Homeland Security funding, officials asserted that for most of these lesser-known facilities, terror activity is not a question of if, but when- that is, unless something expensive can be done soon to protect them.

Once the confidential report leaked to the press, citizens learned to their horror that the World's Second Largest Ball of Twine is completely unprotected. Many citizens assumed that the 2002 DHS grant had already paid for a small cadre of Army Reserve troops to provide a 24-hour watch over the site, but due to [DELETED IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY] those funds had to be diverted to address more pressing needs like [DELETED IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL SECURITY].

Regardless of the circumstances, nervous Americans are demanding that something be done to protect the ball. Unfortunately, previous efforts to do this have run into stiff resistance from misguided members of Congress who seem to believe that the site isn't worth protecting.

"The question is simple: do we value our national treasures or not?" asked Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R. Kansas). " How would you feel if the freedom-haters scored another one for their side by unraveling what took one bored Kansan so many years to roll up? Surely we can set aside Homeland Security moneys to effectively protect America's penultimate twine sphere."

If something were to happen to the ball, city officials say the region's booming tourism industry would die off, not to mention the brisk twine business. The result would be nothing short of economic catastrophe as joblessness and retail rot spread throughout Northeastern Kansas.

The bottom line: if the terrorists want to hit America in its heart, they will do it here.

CIA sources say off the record that the agency has not yet received any threats directed at the ball itself or even its slightly larger sibling in Cawker City. Yet, the fact is that they could threaten it at any time or, even worse, destroy the thing with no warning whatsoever. In either case, America is utterly unprepared to deal with this yet-to-materialize threat.

"You might think that after the terrible attacks of 9/11/01, America would be more secure today. Sadly, the deaths of three thousand people have taught us nothing at all. If we don't free up the money to hire my cousin's company to build a fifty-foot tall fence around that thing, mark my words, we will witness a disaster of Guinness Book proportions. And those of us who stood by and did nothing, there will be twine on our hands."