Trafford council, the place where Nazis go to retire, have issued a court summons to the trees in the borough for littering.
"I woke up the other morning," said council leader, Joseph Gerbils, "and there was rubbish all over my nice clean streets."
Gerbils instigated an investigation into the source of the trash littering the streets.
"They came back," he said, "and told me it was leaf litter. When I asked for the source, they said the trees."
Trafford council takes a very dim view on littering, issuing fines to people who have mud fall off their shoes, or lint blow off their coat, and Gerbils has decided enough is enough.
"In this time of austerity, picking up litter costs the borough fifteen million pounds a year. We have to recoup some of that cost from the people who drop it. We provide perfectly good receptacles for putting litter in. There's the brown bin scheme for recycling garden waste, and the trees should damn well put their litter into these facilities."
Trafford council hammered fine notices into as many trees as they could find, some of which fell off thus seeing the council workers fined for littering, but not one tree has rung the hotline to pay the fine, so all of the deciduous trees have been summoned to appear in Trafford County Court.
"We've let the evergreens off," said Gerbils. "They hang onto their litter like good little trees."
Ivy Wood, lawyer for the forestry commission has volunteered to go to court, just so she can laugh at Gerbils.
"I bet he fines his Christmas tree for dropping needles on his carpet," she said.
"They do what?" demanded Gerbils, red-faced. "I'll see all those wooded fiends locked away!"
