A Flag on the Play

 

It started as a simple experiment.  I set a lantern in the yard last night and watched it from inside the house.  I wanted to see if there would be a lot of flying bugs attracted to it.

Within the first thirty minutes there must have been hundreds.  They were swarming around like crazy.  Then I happened to notice two eyes reflected in the light.  They were at ground level, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

They looked too big and far apart to be a possum or racoon, and they weren’t hopping around like a rabbit.  I just kept watching to see if they moved.  Then I saw them slowly blink.  Oh my goodness, it was an alligator.  There wasn’t enough light to see his body lying there on the lawn, but that was a gator, for sure.

There was no way I was going out there to turn the lantern off.  It would just have to burn itself out of fuel.  Hopefully the thing would be gone in the morning.  If not, I’m not sure what I’d do.  Maybe I could pour hot sauce all over my pants.  That way, if he went to bite me, he’d immediately stop.  Or maybe I could find something smelly, something gators didn’t like.  I can look it up on Google.  What do gators find objectionable?

Okay, so that didn’t work.  Everything was about the Florida Gators, and football players finding bad referees objectionable.  Maybe I could get a referee to go out there and give him a penalty.  Maybe just throw him out of the game all together.  “Un-sportsman-like conduct.”