Buzzards Gotta Eat...Same As Worms

So today I got to handle Clint Eastwood's Walker Colt from The Outlaw Josey Wales, the Colt from Pale Rider and a couple of John Wayne's guns...yeah, my job pretty much sucks, but someone has to do it.

So I'm in a Mexican restaurant in SoCal eating a reasonably good guacamole with some sort of blistering salsa when I realize I'm being buzzed by cherubs and seraphim, who I've been ignoring lately. One of the little darlings, who looked vaguely like a Slovakian fashion model — dressed in about half of a Christina Aguilera performance outfit — after a three-day glue bender, lit on my shoulder.

"The SOCOM pistol final specs are coming in August," she whispered.

"Beat it," I said. "You said it was due in April; besides, I already know it's coming in August."

"That was my sister," she sighed, the tip of a decidedly pointed tongue touching my ear, "who doesn't know a thing about military bureaucracy...I can tell you something she doesn't know..."

"Beat it."

A whispering sigh..."suppose the spec contains a 'currently in production' clause? No toolroom prototypes? That would change the whole dynamics, wouldn't it?"

"Not going to happen," I said. "Too many big players frozen out."

"One of those big players is on the market," she whispered; I felt the touch of silky skin on my ear, "...or will be veeeeeery soon..."

"Bad seraphim!", I said. "Back to wherever seraphim come from..."

She ruffled her wings like an irritated — but slutty — parrot. "The Carpathians," she said, "where people still believe in us." She leaned close and I again felt the tip of a tongue. "If you get me a strawberry margarita and tell you dirty little secrets about Colt..."

"That's it!" I said. "No Colt! Absolutely NO Colt! I don't want to hear anything at all about Colt! Next you'll be telling me it's going to be auctioned off on eBay..."

"Clever boy!" she said. "Almost..."