Monday, July 14, 2008

This Woman Votes

I'm in beautiful downtown Le Mars IA tonight sitting in front of the tube with the Discovery Channel on. Dirty Jobs was on, then one I hadn't seen: Verminators. One of the stories was about a couple's dream house infested with rats and mice. The wife was adamant - she wanted a no kill policy. These little creatures hadn't hurt her, so she said, and she didn't want to be a killer. The show did bring up hantavirus and why droppings are so unhealthy. Apparently she was singing La La La when that part came up.

They had a pretty serious infestation. The stovetop continually had droppings, and the exterminator even found turds in their shoes. They had all the access points sealed up and the vermin trapped in the house had to be eliminated. Ms. No Kill was adamant - live traps only.

Well, it was a losing proposition. The rodents can outbreed the catch and release program, and did so. Hubby was invested in the idea of killing the filthy things, but wifey, well, she was pretty weepy and upset. She finally gave in, and the battle for their house was won.

The Discovery Channel didn't show their car or any bumper stickers, but let's just say I had some ideas of what kind of car it was and what was written on their bumperstickers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, yuck! No kill? I would have loaded the Glock and had target practic. I'm sorry if it were only one maybe live trap but an entire houseful? At that point it would be them or me and I'd win.

Jeffro said...

Heh, Leah. Don't be like this 'ol gal.

Unknown said...

Wow, that Verminators episode is really shocking... I can't believe the wife in that episode!

I wanted to give you a heads up... the next big Dirty Jobs special is going to be on Tuesday, July 29th at 9PM. It's actually going to be part of this year's Shark Week (which starts with a brand new Mythbusters on Sunday, July 27th at 9PM). The Dirty Jobs episode is going to be about the quest for the Greenland shark. You can find more info about Shark Week here:

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/sharkweek/sharkweek.html

I hope you don't mind me contacting you like this; I figure you'd be interesting in the news. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to find more info... I work with Discovery and would be happy to share.

Shawn Grover
shawngrover2008@gmail.com

ptg said...

Reminds me of a cat I knew that lived in a trailer in rural Dickens, Iowa. His wife saw a rat in one of their bathroom drawers. She slammed the drawer shut, trapping the critter inside, then called hubby.

He didn't want to get bitten, so he decided to shoot through the drawer front to kill it. It would be OK, he reasoned, since they were remodeling the place and the bathroom was next.

I don't know why he used a deer rifle, maybe that was all he had. After three or four .30-06 rounds, he looked and sure enough, Mr. rat was dead. Then he went to his newly-remodeled kitchen to throw the corpse in the trash. Big surprise, his new counter-top and sink were severely channeled.

I guess he's lucky he didn't kill the wife. Its a good thing he had no nearby neighbors. Cats like him shouldn't live in town anyhow.