When our roommates learned the source of the unpleasant smell that had been dominating our house and life for over a week, outdoorsy guys that they were, they offered to climb down into the well and ...
...Well, they kind of stopped with that idea when they realized that they would have to pick up the bloated woodchuck and somehow carry it back up the 25-feet to the top of the well!
I also just didn't love the idea of us watching as the stones of this 150-year old well might possibly topple in on one of our roommates!
At the next roommate interview...
"What happened to your last roommate?"
"Oh, see that pile of rocks there? He's somewhere at the bottom of them."
Somehow I didn't see that going over too well in attracting any new roommates!
To theYellow Pages...
Now I never realized how many people make their living in the field of "Pest Control and Management."
It was certainly never a career path that had ever been suggested to me or anyone that I knew when our futures were being discussed. On Career Day in my HS days I don't recall visiting the "Pest Management" booth and picking up literature on the field of "Pest Control and Management." Actually, I'm quite sure that there was no such booth.
But, there I was thumbing through pages and pages of Yellow Page ads for Bee Busters, Wildlife Security and Pest Eliminators, Pest BeGone, and Mr. PestAway!
Who knew?!
Now alot of the ads seemed to concentrate on bugs...more specifically, cockroaches...and the company's certifications with an assortment of chemicals that were sure to get rid of these pests.
"Got bugs? Don't panic! Call us -- be bugged no more!"
Bugs were not our problem. But, I didn't exactly see an ad for "dead bloated carcass removal" either.
So, I selected to call Mr. PestAway for this mission. Anyone who deliberately wants to call his business such and thereby be called Mr. PestAway...well, he got my vote! Besides, that meant that I got to make the phone call and ask, "Yes, is Mr PestAway there?"
Just don't have enough of those opportunities in life!
When I called Mr. PestAway was apparently out on a job, so I got to explain our dilemma to Mrs. PestAway. (I didn't really call her that, but in my mind, that's who she was - Mr. PestAway's wife!)
I could tell from her voice that Mrs. PestAway was an older woman, so I deduced that Mr. PestAway was also and that concerned me. If I didn't want that pile of rocks falling in on our young roommates, I certainly didn't want to be responsible for the unfortunate death of this older gentleman. So, I gave Mrs. PestAway thorough details about our problem... the smell, the well, the bloated carcass, 25-feet down, etc.
"Oh, my!" She exclaimed, "I'll tell him when he comes home tonight, though 25-feet down a well? I just don't know how he'll get that out. You just might have to live with that smell until it goes away. It will go away eventually. Living in the country you get this stuff all the time, you know. You just have to learn to live with it."
Somehow Mrs.PestAway was not only not instilling much confidence in me that her husband could do the job for us, she was also questioning my "country living" roots!
I turned to the other ads in the Yellow Pages...but, it became curious to me how many people just didn't return my call...no matter how bold and brazen they sounded in their Yellow Page ad about controlling and eliminating wildlife and pests. If it didn't respond to chemicals, they didn't seem to want to deal with it.
I started to think that Mrs. PestAway might be right after all. We might just have to live with that bloated, stinky carcass until it eventually "went away"!
So, I was pleasantly surprised when Mr. PestAway called me back that night and said he'd be over in the morning to see what he could do.
Ten AM sharp Mr. PestAway arrived. He was indeed an older man, early 70's, I'd say. He was small, wiry but quite spry in his step as I led him to the job site. He wore a little uniform of a navy Dickies shirt and pants. I wanted to see Mr. PestAway embroidered on his shirt, but it wasn't.
I pulled the floor board aside and beamed the flashlight on our culprit.
Mr. PestAway gave a little, "Hmmpf," then said he needed to go to his van to get some tools to help him with this job. I wondered what sort of "tools" one would use for this job? A fishing pole for large rodents?
When he came back around the corner Mr. PestAway had a long rope, a Have-A-Heart trap and a pool skimmer...the kind that you use to skim bugs and leaves off the surface of your pool water. Somehow I couldn't see how this combination of "tools" was going to do the job, but I dutifully held the flashlight as Mr. PestAway started his work.
He tied the trap to the rope and tried to swing it down the 25-foot well length to scoop up the carcass. The rope wasn't long enough so I found some more rope and we tied the two together. Now the trap could reach the bloated animal, but basically Mr. PestAway was just batting the thing around with the trap as it bounced off the walls of the well.
He needed just a little more length as he leaned over into the well. I started to get nervous as he stretched himself more and more over the edge. "Be careful!" I warned, not quite knowing what else to say...but starting to wish that I'd taken my roommates up on their more youthful suggestion...or, at least their youth! I didn't want to be calling up Mrs. PestAway to tell her that her husband died falling into our well trying to scoop up a smelly, dead woodchuck! And, then she would yell at me and tell me that I killed her husband because I just couldn't wait for the smell to go away like regular country folks.
Sensing the precariousness of his situation, Mr. PestAway leaned back up and said, "How about if you hold on to my belt, so's I don't fall down there and join that fella?"
I agreed, but somehow moments later when I realized that all I was holding onto was a skinny little strap of leather held down by an even tinier piece of fabric of his pant's belt loop, I was not reassured. I held on even tighter as he leaned further and further down into the well. "Don't make me have to call your wife now. You don't have to be a hero for a stupid groundhog. Besides, she'll kill me for not being able to "just live with it!" I'm thinking.
Just when I thought that I couldn't hold on much longer and pictured him doing a header into our well, I hear, "Got it!"
Mr. PestAway started to come up from the depths of the well. I felt like I was pulling in a Marlin, like on one of those Mutual of Omaha nature shows. My legs were spread and my feet were braced as I pulled him back up by his belt and he pulled the rope up and held the bloated body in the trap with the pool skimmer. The whole thing plopped on the ground in front of us...looking rather small now, but still giving off a good smell.
"You did it!" I exclaimed quite happily, but mostly relieved that Mr. PestAway was still with us and that I wouldn't have to call his wife!
"Yep," he replied, "Wasn't sure if I was gonna get him or if he was gonna get me down there with him first. The wife wouldn't have liked that. You'd a have to fish me out then too!"
Now relieved, we both chuckled.
I waved to Mr. PestAway as he drove off in his van and breathed some nice fresh country living air for the first time in a week.
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