Step 1: Point out the cute little ground-hog that’s sitting on the front lawn to the kids.
Step 2: Have the wife answer the door when a clueless neighbor stops by to tell you that he’s seen a skunk on your front lawn ... and that because the skunk was there during the day it was probably rabid.
Step 3: Calm the wife down by explaining the visual differences between a groundhog and a skunk, using Pepe le Peu as a visual reference tool.
Step 4: Explain to the wife that you’ll go get a trap from the local lawn/garden store and haul the thing 20+ miles away to a nice field.
Step 5: Make a mistake by answering wife: “Yes, I’ll need to drive the ground hog out there in the same car we use to haul our kids around.
Step 6: Assure wife that the groundhog will STILL be in the trap.
Step 7: With a great deal of frustration, watch as wife calls a pest-control company
Step 8: Meet the pest control guy when he shows up. Make a joke about how some idiot neigbor thought that the groundhog on the front lawn was a skunk.
Step 9: Explain, speaking very s-l-o-w-l-y, to the pest control guy that yes, you know the difference between a skunk and a ground hog. Because you grew up in rural New England. And you know that a groundhog is fat and brown while a skunk is thinner, black/white and with a big fluffy tail.
Step 10: Watch as the pest control guy sets up the trap and camoflages it with leaves.
Step 11: Go to work.
Step 12: Return from work to find the groundhog sitting on the lawn happily munching on something, while a seriously confused and distressed squirrel cools its heels in the trap.
Step 13: Watch the pest control guy reset the trap.
Step 14: Wake up the next morning, go outside and find the groundhog IN the trap, happily munching on the bait apple.
Step 15: Call the kids out to see the captured groundhog.
Step 16: Explain that no, the groundhog will NOT make a good pet.
Step 17: In response to tears and sobbing, take pictures of the groundhog while it’s in the trap happily munching on the bait apple.
Step 18: Wait for the pest control guy to come and collect the trapped groundhog.
Step 19: Call the wife to explain that the groundhog is really gone.
Step 20: Four day’s later open the letter from the pest control company containing an invoice for $275.00 for the capture and disposal service.
Step 21: Curse like a f*&%ing sailor. To no one in particular.
Good story! I’m the wife in this case and I would jump up and down with glee to see a captured groundhog, dead or alive!
Good story! I’m the wife in this case and I would jump up and down with glee to see a captured groundhog, dead or alive!