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Robert The Author
April 29, 2001
Every week our wonderful new gardener Gabriel works hard at controlling an enormous gopher population that hides under our property. He sets many traps. On occasion he tries to flood them out with a water hose and sometimes tells my wife about his victorious encounters with the enemy. Hundreds of these little creatures spend hours digging holes from one end of our manicured lawn to the other. Their habit is to chew at the roots of plants and shrubs until they've left nothing alive except Cactus plants. Each week a couple of those little burrowing devils get trapped. In our inarticulate President Bush's silly cowboy jargon, 'those 'onry little critters bite the dust.'
Well, to tell the truth, I've never been around to watch any of those gopher executions, or for that matter, never been to one funeral. Now that I think of it, I've missed every viewing of Gabriel's open casket celebrations, including the sorrowful exit in his black shrouded pickup truck. (I've never even asked him where the cemetery was.) My wife Elisse reminded me that she found it odd that I was never to be found at home on gardening days. As if by clockwork my car always drove up 10 or 15 minutes after the gardener had left.
"Were you waiting for Gabriel to finish his work for the day before returning home?" she asked this with a sly twinkle in her eye. "And might it have something to do with gopher traps?"
It wasn't until late this morning, after my wife had returned from her daily walk with our little dog Espresso, that the pieces all fit into place and I understood what Elisse had been teasing me about.
"Robert darling," she said, "There's a dead gopher at the bottom of the pool. Can you please do me a big favor and get rid of the poor thing. I'd really, really appreciate it."
"Sure I will, just as soon as I finish making the coffee, then I'll go out to the storage shed and look for that long handled pool skimming sieve to fish him out, okay?"
It never occurred to me that I was dodging the gopher issue. It took me a lot longer than usual to finish making that cup of coffee. Somehow I got sidetracked making a lot of unnecessary phone calls. I was about to start fiddling with a crossword puzzle when Elisse gently reminded me about the waterlogged rodent.
"When I pull the thing out of the pool," I asked, "What do you want me to do with it?"
"What would you like to do with it?" She teasingly responded.
"Well now, let me think about that a minute. I could wrap it up in a plastic bag, or I could just throw it over the fence. How does that sound to you?"
"Sure," she said, "I think that'll be alright, but please try and make it over the back fence. There's only a couple of horses and cute little donkey out there, no one will even notice. I'll bet the animals won't mind one bit."
As I was attempting to scoop the little animal into the plastic net I was surprised at my emotional reaction to the simple task of disposing with this little garden pest. It looked so helpless floating on its side with it's legs outstretched. I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and said to myself, "Come on now old boy, get a grip on yourself. Sweet Elisse asked for your help, and the two of us are supposed to be Lord and Lady of the castle, so stop the moaning and get on with it!"
I dutifully continued to perform one of the less glamorous tasks that comes with my high office and regal title of "Protector of the Realm!" At least today that's what I'm known as. Anyone can plainly see that I protect hearth and home from any and all marauding foes, large and small.
I tossed the dead little drowned enemy over the barbed wire fence and said farewell. I promised myself that I would encourage Gabriel to fight the good fight and try and protect our little garden from....whatever harm wild beasts like gophers and ground squirrels can inflict on law abiding citizens like us.
Today I learned one very important truth about myself. Cowardice. Every week on gardening days, I'll wait for at least 10 or 15 minutes for Gabriel's pickup truck to drive past my hiding place around the corner. (After the dead gophers have been properly escorted off the property.)
Robert the Brown
