(no subject)

"The good news," Mark said, as we got ready for bed, "is that Nate's found a place to hunt pig."
"Ooh!  Fresh pork for adobo!"
"Yep.  TVA land, just south of Athens, near the water.  That's the bad news."
"Near the water is bad news?"
"Eyah.  Alligators in the river.  And you can't shoot them."
" 'Um...JOHN?!' "
"Exactly."


Once upon a time, a friend of mine native to Florida watched a gator eat her neighbour's dog.  It happened while my friend was having her first smoke-and-coffee of the morning, so it was less like something real and more like a grisly dream.  One moment, she said, it was her neighbour's toy poodle yapping at the sun.  The next, it was this lazy Neverland monster strolling up out of the water.  "Um...JOHN?!" was all she managed to get out before the yapping stopped with a crunch.  And thus did the phrase enter our lexicon of shorthand.

There's a story around here (apocryphal as all hell; I've heard it maybe twice, but never from anyone in a position to know for true) that once upon a time Redstone Arsenal had a godsaweful beaver infestation.  So the Army decided to import some gators to eat the things and fix the problem.  Female gators were all they brought in, so they couldn't breed and overrun the place.  Meanwhile, the Byrd Springs Rod & Gun club had also noticed the beaver infestation on their hunting preserve--the one that shared a swamp with the Arsenal--so they decided to import some gators to eat the things and fix the problem.  Males, so they couldn't breed and overrun the place. 
Yeah.
The good news is that they found a place to hunt beavers.
The bad news? 
Well, it's near the water...