Irwin Blindsided by "Bleedin' Texas Wanker"

Remember the other day how I told you to stay out of Eufaula, Alabama, if you didn't want to be eaten by alligators?

Once again--it's amazing how often this happens--fate has proven me right. According to The Eufaula Tribune, a gator tried to snarf down a delectable three-year-old over the weekend. It happened while the kid was playing by the water at the Eufaula Yacht Club, in the shadow of the stately aluminum jonboats.

By the way, I managed to scrounge up a photo of the yacht club.

Some guy who refuses to be identified says his son was screwing around near the water when a six-foot gator swam up, stood on its hind feet, began ringing a large dinner triangle, and asked for hush puppies and slaw. Something like that. The guy grabbed his son and gave the gator some ad hoc behavioral therapy by nailing it in the head with a big rock. So much for Gator Whispering. Animal psychology in the South is a whole different ballgame.

The story calls him "the local man, who asked not to be identified." What IS it with Southerners being perpetually embarrassed? Again, I am not referring to white trash, whose rudimentary brains lack the usual embarrassment and self-respect receptors. There are huge-breasted 300-pound men all over the South who go from May to September wearing the same pair of stained cutoffs and no shirt, even to weddings funerals, and bond hearings. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about people who own their own homes and who have never been arrested for things like driving a riding mower three miles the wrong way on an interstate highway to buy Bud Light and snuff.

Says Local Man, "If it had been two more seconds, I would have lost a child in the worst possible way." As contrasted with the good ways to lose a child. Like selling it to Michael Jackson for a handsome fee and a new bass boat. How come Steve Irwin never said anything like that after using his son as a makeshift crocodile Milkbone? Maybe it wasn't his son at all. Maybe it was a stunt, using a meatloaf painted to resemble a baby. Maybe Steve is a meatloaf, too. That would explain a lot.

A man with less presence of mind might have said something more revealing. Such as, "I am a towering mound of steaming dumbass." But I'm sure his wife pointed that out when he got home. About four million times. When that kid is cashing in his IRA, his mom will still be ending every argument with, "Well I'M not the one who tried to feed little Dewart to an alligator."

Local Man goes on: "The fact is, there needs to be an open season. A big open season. It's not going to take but one attack to kill the lake."

Or, just to play devil's advocate and propose a completely off-the-wall solution, maybe people could keep their three-year-olds away from hungry alligators.

You're not getting an open season, dude. Not unless we get one in Florida, too. Or you send us some tails to fry.

Why not use the kid to help round them up? A good fisherman always sticks with proven bait. Put it in a cage by the water, borrow your wife's machine gun (this IS Alabama), and pop the alligators as they try to chew through the bars. Or you could fall back on the traditional bait favored by rural Southern fishermen. Of course, I am referring to dynamite.

Here's more: "Despite the growing alligator population, it is still illegal to hunt alligators in Alabama on the banks of Lake Eufaula, according to Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Sgt. Aurora Thomas." Additionally, the kid's father has been fined for hunting alligators in a baited area.

They can't resist getting a little jab in. "There has never been a reported alligator attack that has resulted in a fatality in Alabama, but more than a dozen deaths in Florida can be linked to alligators." It's not our fault. Old Jews can't run very fast.

Officials had some helpful tips. Here's a good one. "Don't swim or wade if possible." In case you didn't get the memo, the alligators have won. You may no longer go in the water. When they start coming up in your yards, the state will advise you not to leave the house. When they come in the house, the state will tell you to stay in your room and keep the damn noise down.

Here's another one. "Stay at least 35 feet from an alligator on land." That's good advice. And to find out if you're 35 feet away, take a measuring tape and run it from your position to the alligator's nose. You'd be surprised how many people have been killed because the distance was more like 34 feet, 9 inches.

The Texas tourist attraction Gator Country is in the news again. When last we saw owner Gary Saurage, he was appearing in a death-defying Internet video in which he taunted and pimpslapped a ferocious gator which he carried to the scene in a coffee can. You know you're watching a lame gator show when the human is holding the gator's jaws closed with a bobby pin.

Saurage says to avoid provoking mom gators. That comes in handy. I was about to run outside and give one a wet willy. He says, "That mother alligator's not trying to eat you, make no mistake. She's just trying to protect that nest, and that means she's gonna try to bite you." He fails to point out that she may eat you incidentally.

I wouldn't pay too much attention. This is the same guy who recently told a reporter his egg-laying gators were "pregnant."

Saurage explains why he, and he alone, is able to handle gators without being harmed. ""I know the strike zones and what they're capable of doing. When I'm looking at that alligator and I'm gonna hand feed him, I'm looking for that foot placement. I want to know where those feet are." Also: "It helps if the gator is nine inches long and still has eggshell stuck to its back."

How do you learn about alligator "strike zones"? Wouldn't it be simpler to use the word "feet"?

Says Saurage, "On land, alligators can move at 30 miles per hour for short distances." "Or faster when chained to the bumper of my orange 1975 Chevy LUV with one green door."

This guy is a wellspring of scientifical facts. Look: "The reason is that an alligator will only strike when they're bloated up. That's where their energy comes from. After they exhale that, they're done."

Does he mean gators...or WOMEN? They're dangerous when they're bloated up, all right. Some men have to stay in motels several days a month.

Saurage had an explanation for the unpredictability of alligators. "'The reason being, that alligator's brain is about that big,' he said, displaying a pinkie nail." He then moved his finger down to cover half of the nail saying, "And here is my OWN brain."

In his quest for publicity, Saurage has resorted to talking smack about croc god Steve Irwin:

He went on to comment on Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin, who raised an international furor by walking his month-old son near a large croc he was feeding during one of his shows.

"There's nothing smart about that," Saurage said.

"That's a no-no. That should not happen. That's a 16-foot croc that can move quicker than he can. If that croc had gotten hold of that kid, there would have been nothing he (Irwin) could have done about it.

"I know he knows those things like I know these alligators, but if you think I'd put a kid at risk... that was absolutely stupid."

What Saurage fails to realize is that the kid was chaff. The gator springs, you toss Steve, Junior, and seconds later, you're on the other side of the fence, in front of the cameras, saying "Bloimey, Oi'm going to catch it from the missus."

Saurage continues: "What makes them attack a human? Is it true hunger? Is it a territorial thing? To be honest with you, I haven't found any writings that can honestly explain why that alligator did that." He went on, "In my experience it usually happens because someone, i.e., my own self, jumps in the gator's pen and sits on its back."

He issued a final, chilling word of warning. ""Everybody needs to know that if there's a drainage ditch that's coming off a bayou; if there's any possible way that an alligator could be there, they're there. You might not see them, but they're there." And he added, "Because gators is invisible. When they want to be. Unless treated with several coats of house paint. By the way, have you seen our new white leucystic gator?"

Don't nobody tell Gary Saurage where I live, okay?