Job Security

My Brother in Law, who is a university professor, sent me this story about his groundhog problem. Being liberal types, they eschiew the ballistic solution for the critter friendly trap.

I was talking with a university grounds keeper who cuts lawns in my neighborhood for extra money. As I was asking his advice, guess who pokes his head up and simply walks into the set trap? Now, we all know that a groundhog must be put some distance or it will simply come back. This groundkeeper gave me an address of a full time trapper in the next, semi-rural county. I called him up to get directions to his farm. It was like traveling to Deliverance—the movie, thru a winding, canyon road. When we get there, his young teen daughters were having target practice. So, we take the cage out of the trunk; and, let it go on his land. The trapper didn’t charge us. He then gives me a different set of directions from his farm to the main highway. As I go over the county ridge line road and into the next dale, there is this big expensive McMansion Subdivision. Now, a light bulb pops in my brain. I know why he takes groundhogs and skunks for free from the university. He lets them wander on his land and eventually they find a home under a porch or whatever at one of these expensive McMansions. As the ground keeper told me later at lunch, he then charges to trap them. He then sets them free, and has this thriving repeat business!