Rabies Hunting

The Gay Uncle was rewarded today. Just by spending the afternoon hours with his brother-in-law Marty during their family vacation in Montana, delicious fresh material for this site was delivered to him, like manna from heaven. All it took was the sighting of a native rodent, a few beers, and Marty’s fertile mind, and an incredible plan was hatched. “Let’s set up a trap on the porch to try to catch one of those prairie dogs,” Marty exclaimed, immediately rushing around the house in a frenzy. He gathered up a few key but apparently unrelated items: fishing line, a fork, a plastic dog dish, a rock, some sourdough bread, a cell phone charger, a trout fly, and a jar of peanut butter, and before the G.U. could say, “This won’t end well” he’d assembled a makeshift trap–like something primitive man might have made if he had begun his evolutionary path in a Bass Pro Shop–and was baiting it with a tiny sandwich. “We’ll put a little more peanut butter here in order to lure him up,” Marty said, as he smeared a dollop on the edge of the deck. He then ran the filament to the fork/trigger, stepped inside the house, and closed the sliding glass door, leaving it open just enough to allow the cell phone charger cord to which he’d tied the line some slippage.

The first “test” of the mechanism revealed it to be functional. “We’re going to nab that little fucker,” Marty gurgled gleefully from his perch behind the curtains. He reset the trap and opened another beer. As he did, Gunc poured a second vodka tonic, doing his best to keep up. “Can I ask you a question?” he said to his B.I.L. “What do you plan to do with the prairie dog if you succeed in catching him?” Marty cocked his head and donned an expression that was a close approximation of what other people look like when they’re thinking, and smirked. “I think Brookie,” his 9 year old, “said she wanted to pet one. I guess I’d probably put it in her room. Like, under her pillow, or in the closet or the dresser” His daughters were on a shopping expedition with their grandmother and auntie and were expected back any time. “Can you imagine the look on her face if she found that there?”

The Gay Uncle did not answer. Honestly, he could not.