Drug testing in the workplace is a bad idea, and it isn't hard to see why.

America's legal work force totals about 120 million from street sweepers to CEO's. The expense of medical care being what it is, let's say each bread-winner only takes a urine test once a year. Evenly proportion the burden and you'll discover 120,000,000 divided by 365 equals 328,767 little yellow cups safeguarded by mailboxes each and every day.

It doesn't take a psychic to predict that the indignity of toting that many liquid test results will finally push disgruntled postal workers past the edge. When they pool their ammo and prepare to strike back against their oppressors, the President will look up from his intern and call out the National Guard.

The only problem is that the 800,000 angry employees of the United States Postal Service (USPS) just about double the number of supposed saviors in the National Guard. In fact, with a huge fleet of cars, trucks and planes, massive warehouses and even-more-massive cash supplies, as well as daily access to every home in the country, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor Rambo is going to stay these couriers from wiping the floor with the rest of us.

Couldn't happen, says the skeptic. Not as long as the Army (480,000 strong), Navy (372,000), Air Force (361,000) and Marines (172,000) have the National Guard's back. Surely 1,385,000 G.I. Joes and Janes can outmaneuver less than a million P.O.'d USPS Petes and Pams?

Surely. Except that it's mighty hard to outmaneuver from China.

Not to belabor the painfully obvious, but when the Postmaster General leads the coup d'tat (they don't call him the Postmaster Pacifist, do they?) the Chinese government will surely seize on our moment of weakness to settle a few scores. Let's face facts: we sent "peacekeeping" battle groups to their missile tests near Taiwan; we "accidentally" bombed their embassy in Belgrade; we imported the "new, improved" Windows 2000 operating system to their country. As far as they'll consider the matter, we asked for it.

At this point, we'll be fighting a full-scale war at home and abroad. We won't be able to mobilize our supplies because the USPS will control both land and air and it's tough to e-mail a humvee. We won't be able to mobilize our troops because China's entry into the fray will give them a billion person edge in any game of Last Man Standing. About all we will be able to mobilize is our white flags, which we will then valiantly wave until the shelling stops.