Lately, my sleep has been disturbed. Living in the city, you
can expect to face the usual nocturnal noises, like traffic, sirens and annoying
teenagers yelling “WOOOOO!” when they’re drunk on Bacardi Breezers. To be fair, I don’t know if that’s what they’re
drinking, but I like to imagine some lame beverage because I hate those kids. But what I don’t expect to hear at night are
love crazed coyotes making dirty love in the field behind my house.
In case your experience with coyotes is limited to the Bugs
Bunny and Tweety Show, real life coyotes do not have access to the Acme mail
order catalogue. Quite frankly, it would
be terrifying if they did, because instead of ordering rocket powered jet packs or
huge anvils, they would no doubt be ordering kinky bondage gear from some
disreputable adult website. I know this
because every single night (between 1:00 am and 5:00 am) the coyotes take time
off from scratching their fleas to engage in VERY LOUD Caligula style
orgies. Yelping, barking, howling, screeching,
whining… these are the noises that comprise coyote pillow talk and I’m at the
point where I’m going to have to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
When I first saw that there were coyotes living in the field
behind my house, I thought, “How quaint!
It’s like living in the country.
I now have the joy and wonder of wildlife right in my neighborhood!” They kind of look like dogs, except they’re
really skinny and have really narrow, snobby looking faces – kind of like how
supermodels look to us regular people.
So I was OK with having them around as long as they didn’t construct elaborate devices to catch a roadrunner and hold up little signs that say, “Yipes!” when
they fall off a cliff. The problem,
aside from the nightly bedlam, is the fact that they are now roaming around the
alleys and backyards, probably searching for Viagra. If they can’t find any, I’m quite certain
they will resort to eating someone’s lap dog or possibly their slow witted
children. All of a sudden, the cute coyotes
became a menace.
The other day I was in my backyard when all of a sudden I
spotted one of the filthy vermin rummaging around my next door neighbors’
backyard. Like a real life Dr. Doolittle, I attempted to
reason with the creature. I went over to
the fence and said, “Hey, get lost.” It
ignored me. Then I got tough. I yelled, “HEY! Get out of there!!!!” and clapped my
hands. Just in case you ever find
yourself confronted with a dangerous wild animal, I would suggest you don’t
clap your hands at it. They think you
are applauding them. The coyote looked
pleased, kind of like Meryl Streep graciously accepting an Oscar.
So after being ignored again, I felt my manliness being
mocked, so I started moving toward him in a threatening manner (scowling,
narrowing my eyes, looking very cross indeed) and then finally he got up and
sauntered away at a leisurely pace.
Needless to say, I felt insulted.
As he meandered off, he looked over his shoulder at me as if to say, “I’m
leaving, but only because you bore me.”
Some of you may be thinking, “Frank, you handsome son of a
bitch, why don’t you just call Animal Control and have them come deal with it?” Of course I thought of that, but I’m an
animal person, a sentimental nature lover (translation: Pathetic Wussy) and don’t
want to see them killed. I would prefer
that they be gently transplanted back into the wild, or at least into some
other part of town where I don’t live.
I have some experience with live animal relocation. A few years ago I was constantly woken up at
5 in the morning by an annoying squirrel that would drop pine cones onto the
roof of my truck. After suffering
through this for a number of days, I decided to relocate the little bastard to
a nice park somewhere. I have this live
animal trap constructed out of plywood and sheer genius… so I decided to use
it. I baited it every morning with
peanut butter and after being repetitively foiled by the sneaky creature, I
finally was rewarded by the satisfying sound of the trap’s door slamming
shut. Delighted, I took the trap out to
a park and opened the door to let the squirrel escape into some trees. What came out was a very frazzled house
cat.
My conscience smote me when I considered leaving the cat
there but I kept envisioning some cute little girl wandering the neighborhood
with tears in her eyes, crying out, “Mr. Whiskers! Mr. Whiskers, please come home!” So I spent almost an hour trying to corral
this psychotic cat back into the car and when I finally got my hands on him, I
put him in the trunk and drove him back to the neighborhood where he could
steal peanut butter from some other guy’s trap.
BUT THE POINT IS, I’ve learned from this mistake and I’m
ready to deal with the coyote problem head on.
First, I’m going to construct a larger live animal trap, bait it with Barry
White albums and a nice Chardonnay, and then I’m going to systematically
relocate those pesky coyotes back into the wild (or a maybe a busy shopping mall).
Stay (looney) tuned.
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