Ready the nukes! Swab the poop deck! Light my cigarette! Take the girl upstairs!

The first declaration — the one about nuclear weapons — is most likely just as preposterous as the ones that follow, but according to state media in North Korea, the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un exclaimed a variation of it recently, and now the rest of the sane world is left in kind of a weird place.

Because let’s face it: North Korea talks a lot of trash. A LOT of trash — and most of it is fantastical news that doesn’t equate to reality. Which begs the question — is this another one of their tall tales? Or should we (the United States, the West, etc.) be legitimately concerned?

Or just laugh it off?

Jong-un supposedly told his military to lock and load their nuclear weapons and be in “pre-emptive attack” mode as a show of force in the face of their “threats”.

Many think this drastic pronouncement was in response to the United Nations Security Council imposing strict and debilitating sanctions against the isolated totalitarian dictatorship.

More from Reuters:

Military experts doubt [North Korea] has yet developed the capability to fire a long-range missile with a miniaturized warhead to deliver a nuclear weapon as far as the United States.

Kim made the comments as he supervised military exercises involving newly developed rocket launchers, KCNA reported. It did not mention the date of the drills but said the new weapons had South Korea within range.

South Korea’s defense ministry said on Thursday the North launched several projectiles off its coast into the sea, up to 150 km (90 miles) away, an apparent response to the U.N. sanctions.

Kim said North Korea should “bolster up (its) nuclear force both in quality and quantity” and stressed “the need to get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defence always on standby so as to be fired any moment,” KCNA quoted him as saying.

“Now is the time for us to convert our mode of military counteraction toward the enemies into a pre-emptive attack one in every aspect.”