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No boll weevils, we have a government eradication program for them, our sweet and wonderful government. Every year we must pay the precious state $6 per acre for every acre of cotton that we plant. They place traps every so many feet around each field, usually right in the way of turning around with a spray boom or some other equally reasonable place. Every week during cotton season, government personnel interrupt their 6 hour a day in naps under shade trees, to check the traps and report any weevils caught.

The eradication program has been so successful against the boll weevil that stink bugs are now resistant to every insecticide known to man and we now need a stink bug eradication program, guaranteeing several more generations of the same family jobs that seem to interrupt long lunches and naps in the shade to place and check traps.

To add insult to injury, if you do not have your cotton stalks cut down by December 31 each year, The Program will fine you exorbitant amounts of money. Doesn't matter whether or not you've been able to harvest the cotton or get in the field through the weather to get the stalks cut ... if it is December 31, you better have it done. One year we got fined $637,000.00 for uncut stalks. After much argument and wrangling, I think we paid $1,500.00 to make them stop harping and threatening to take the farm. It is almost as bad as organized crime.

On a more serious note, the boll weevil has been practically unknown for many years now and saved Louisiana's second largest source of income from certain devastation.

I think I'm done with that little hissy fit. [sigh]