Stories and Captions

Cleaning House

Yessir, it’s a good thing you called when you did. After my inspection, I’m sorry to confirm that you do indeed have a chick problem. No one likes to hear it, I know; the cleanup from any infemmestation is damned difficult, but let me put your mind at ease, my sister’s kid Skeeter and I’re perfessionals. We’ll need to tent the place and put down traps for your critter, acquire her, and then process the living space for her spoor… but when we’re through, you’ll be free.

Oh, absolutely. Pardon my vulgarity, but getting rid of a girl’s crap is the hardest part of getting rid of the girl! You’d be amazed where we find their waste products: stuffed into the backs of nightstand drawers, wedged into medicine cabinets, and nowadays, clogging up iTunes libaries. If they touched it, they’s probably done left some shit in it, is what I’m sayin’; all a part of their nestin’ process, I reckon.

Nah, don’t you worry about them little vermin, sir! Oh sure, I been bit. Lotsa times. You cain’t be in this business and not get bit once in a while. Most of the time, a good, hard smack on the nose‘ll put ‘em on their backs with their legs twitchin’… they don’t bite twice, let’s put it that way.

But mostly, they’re harmless as long as— um, you ain’t got no chocolate in the house, do ya, sir? They’s drawn to cocoa and shiny stuff, like candy bars and earrings. And they *do* tend to get a bit more difficult at the peak of their twenty-eight day reperductive cycle; I’ve seen two of ‘em fight near to death over a pair of old sweat pants and some raw cookie dough.

That’s a great question. I think about that a lot. About playing God with all these scurryin’ little lives.

My friend Dickie —he worked for my old man, taught me damn near everthing about pest control— he used to say, “Nature ain’t always purty, but she always get her way.” I think that’s why I stay in this business… ‘cause I think Dickie got that one thing wrong. Nature ain’t in charge of shit. I say “fuck nature.” Fuck her in the ass, and pardon my language. ‘Cause y’know, God give man dominion of the Earth, and way I see it, if we want to make nature purty and put her in her place, then why the fuck not? Right? You betcha I’m right.

Fuckin’ A.

Now sign right here and we’ll get to work…