Why Is This Install Wanting to Remove My Kernel Image?

[Scarletdown <gsutton9503@wavecable.com>]

I've had this happen twice.  Both times, I aborted the install of
course).  The first time was when I wanted to install AbiWord, the
second time was just a few minutes ago, when I was going to install
flpsed so that I could complete an important form to email back to my
squadron.  When I did the apt-get install, one of the messages that came
up was this:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
  kernel-image-2.6.9-1-k7

Erm, that is the only kernel installed on my system.  Wouldn't my system
be unbootable if that was removed?