It’s Eric’s Fault.
So, there I was sitting in front of the computer a little after eight o’clock, minding my own business and thinking about what to write, when I got a phone call from Eric.
â€Hey Jimbo, just wanted to tell you to go turn on the History Channel.â€
Knowing Eric to be a person who is interested in history, I asked what the show was about. With Eric, it could be anything from the history of the Marine Corps to something about ancient Greece.
â€It’s all about whether alligators could live in the sewers of New York City.â€
Just farookin’ swell.
After a few minutes of catch-up bullshitting, we signed off and I decided to walk away from the computer to see whether alligators could live in the New York City sewers. I was silently concerned that, if the rotten beasts could survive New York City ca ca, they could probably make a summertime trip across the Hudson and find their way into the fetid swamp of toxic soup between New York and New Jersey known affectionately (albeit disingenuously) as the “Meadowlands†to the New Jersey sewers. Or, whether the whole thing is just an Urban Legend.
I tuned into the portion of the show that focused on two brave guys lunatics who capture five-hundred alligators per year in West Palm Beach. They were dragging a ten-foot, sorely pissed off alligator from a pond right behind a goddamned supermarket. Right behind a supermarket! Where people go to buy their goddamned groceries!
The scene then changed to video of the inside of the New York City sewers to show the wonderful things that live there and could serve as a “food source†for alligators, such as, oh, about a gazillion roaches, slugs, worms and roughly ten million rats. Good grief!
Anyway, one of the three experts (a Florida guy who squatted in front of a pond facing the camera and talked while a gator the size of a Cadillac was chilling in the pond about four feet from his turned back), thought alligators could not live in New York City sewers. Whew!
Unfortunately, the other two experts thought alligators could survive and even find enough nesting material in the sewers to reproduce. Moreover, one of these guys figured that and that it is conceivable that one lucky gator couple could result in as many as 4,000 gators in three years swimming happily in the sewers, until they tired of munching on rats and decided to emerge from their underground digs to dine on dogs and a few homeless peeps.
If there was any good news, it was that even after setting up a widget that emits what amounts to a love call to gators and would automatically photograph an approaching gator, they saw none. They even traipsed around in the sewers and saw no evidence of the pre-historic beasts. The best they could come up with was a photo of a salamander.
After the show, I began to watch the quest to find an industrial-sized black shark reported to eat sea lions whole in the Sea of Cortez (nowhere near Jersey) until I fell asleep in Mr. Recliner, only to dream of – guess what.
That’s my pal, Eric. He’s always lookin’ out for me.
Yeap…better to have the Blade on your side, than not. That is a fact.
Comment by Sam — March 19, 2009 @ 8:05 am
See Jimbo? We’re your pals, and we’re always watching out for you. 🙂
Comment by Dave Merriman — March 19, 2009 @ 9:47 am
Just so you know, West Virginia probably has alligators too. My grand-uncle had one of those baby kind back in the 60s and he flushed it when it got too mean to care for. I bet the Ohio River has mutated it, warped it, and its baby critters are right now holding political office somewhere…
Comment by LeeAnn — March 19, 2009 @ 10:51 am
I’m NOT going to go look it up… (because I’m too damned lazy) but aren’t alligators cold blooded? Can they even survive a NYC winter? Well, possibly in the sewers if it stays warm enough down there, but they wouldn’t be able to head to the surface during winter to get food without freezing to death.
Comment by Teresa — March 19, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
… my pleasure, sir…… heh heh heh…… be sure to let me know when the next Zombie flick is on…..
Comment by Eric — March 19, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
Doesn’t matter. The gators wouldn’t be around for long before the CHUDs got ’em.
Comment by Graumagus — March 20, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
In the Navy, we called guys like Eric “Buddy-f*ckers”. (NOT to be confused with butt*f*ckers)
Comment by Dan O — March 20, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
I wonder what supermarket that was. It may have been near my house! That time I called you with the big gator in the road, it was about .25 miles from our Publix. Hmmm.
On a side note, I thought of you today. Well… hell… I’ll post it. Heh.
Comment by Bou — March 20, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
A few years ago, I was at a convention and Steve Irwin (R.I.P) was there promoting his next movie. It was a dinner event, and we were all seated at tables around a long runway.
During dinner, Steve came out with 3 handlers…toting a crocodile that seemed as long as the runway. This thing was massive! As Steve was giving his presentation, the croc started to get really unruly. (Keep in mind, we are dining only a few tables away from all this!) It took a lot of man handling to get that croc under control. They finally had to drag it kicking and screaming off of the stage.
You would have loved that!
After the dinner, they brought out a 10 foot long yellow snake that had to be at least a foot in diameter. And we got to go pet it!
Fun times!
Comment by DogsDontPurr — March 21, 2009 @ 1:50 am
“They were dragging a ten-foot, sorely pissed off alligator from a pond right behind a goddamned supermarket. Right behind a supermarket! Where people go to buy their goddamned groceries!”
Well, sure! Deer hunters know you hunt where the deer eat. Why not gators? I’m surprised they weren’t hanging out at McDonald’s.
(Found you at Bou’s.)
Comment by Roses — March 21, 2009 @ 11:49 am
CHOMP!!!
Comment by JihadGene — March 22, 2009 @ 12:57 am
… that’s alright, Dan O…. in the Marine Corps, we called guys like you “Squids”…….
Comment by Eric — March 22, 2009 @ 8:10 am
Aw, Jimbo – you can console yourself with the thought that you are far more likely to encounter an alligator than Eric is to encounter a zombie.
Now: Zombie Alligators. That’s something to worry about!
Comment by Elisson — March 23, 2009 @ 3:58 pm