Your Dangling Days Are Done!

I admit I've been stringing you along since Wednesday. Left you hangin' on Thursday. Tossed in a fake-book commercial on Friday. But today, I promise, you'll find out about Hick's shenanigans. Perhaps it is a tale best related from his own mouth:

"I was sitting in my office and saw an email from the city. I opened it up, and it was from some new guy. A building inspector, maybe. I know most of the guys at the city, but this was a new one. He said I had some dead birds on the property, and needed to dispose of them. So I told him I wasn't disposin' of NOTHIN'! That if the city had a problem with it, they could clean it up theirself. He said they wouldn't, because it was on private property, not city property. So I said then it wasn't a problem. It was on PRIVATE property! But he said I was going to clean it up. And I said I wasn't. And he said I WAS. He said they'd turn it over to the police as a nuisance if I didn't get it cleaned up.

So...I took the boss up to that end of the property with me to see what was going on. We have about 7 acres, and this was on the part where I got them drainage pipes that the contractor had left there when he died. We got up there, and I was expecting a few birds. The city guy said they were snow geese. We didn't find a few birds. We found a PILE of birds!

Looked like there was about a hundred and fifty of 'em. Just piled there. Like somebody threw 'em out of the back of a truck! And they'd split 'em open and cut out the breast meat. They wasn't stinkin' yet. So I went back to the plant and got on the phone with another guy I know at the city. He's in the sewer department. I asked him if they could clean up that mess for me. He said they couldn't, because it was on private property. None of their equipment is allowed to be used on private property.

I called my buddy from the contractors down home, to see if they had a backhoe in the area that I could use. But they didn't. I told my boss all I knew to do was for me to haul one of my tractors up here on a trailer, and use the bucket to try and dig a hole. But I don't think I could dig a hole deep enough to get rid of all them birds.

So me and the boss walked up to see the gun guy. He has a business up there by that section of the property. He came out and looked with us. He said that snow geese are legal to kill right now. There's no limit. He says people call them the roaches of the sky. He figures somebody dumped them on Monday night. Said his dogs were going crazy. He said if we left those birds there, that the coyotes would probably have 'em eaten within a couple of days. But other than that, he didn't have any idea how we could get rid of them. And that we might want to set up a surveillance camera, because people have started dumping stuff up there.

It just burns me up that somebody had cut the breasts out of them birds, and throwed the rest there to rot! A lot of people could have used that meat. Hell, if a deer gets run over, the Highway Patrol at least donates the meat. It doesn't go to waste. This is just wasteful."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Nothing right now. He didn't give me a deadline. He said he'd call the police if I didn't remove the nuisance. We'll see what happens. I don't have any way to get rid of them, unless I hire a contractor with a dozer."

Let the record show that as of Friday, Hick said he hadn't been back to see if the coyotes had done their job. Let the record further show that this morning, Saturday, at exactly 9:00, our house phone rang. Hick had just gone out the door, headed to town, probably to score some illicit sugary donuts and hit some flea markets. I could not answer the call because I was on the toilet in the bathroom indisposed unable to go to the phone.

We have a phone on the bathroom wall, but it doesn't ring. So it was only a stroke of luck that the furnace wasn't running and I could hear the ring from the one in the living room. It was the City of Workplaceville. That's what our computer-voiced answerer said. "Call from...City of Workplaceville."

When I was able to grab a functioning phone, I called Hick. "The City of Workplaceville just called. I couldn't answer the phone in time. I wonder what they could want?"

"I don't know. I don't care. They can call someone else." Let the record show that Hick already worked 3-and-a-half days of his 3-day work week.

"Do you think it's about those birds?"

"Who knows? Somebody will deal with it. It's probably just the police, because them guys are working today, and they never get the alarm turned off right." Let the record further show that this happens a lot, but that it is generally preceded by a call from the alarm company prior to the police.

Hick might still make it to jail. I guess Monday Tuesday will tell.
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***UPDATE*** Sunday, 4:20 p.m.

Last night around 8:00, Hick dared to descend to my dark basement lair to tell me that he had just checked his phone, and that the office manager at his workplace had sent him a text shortly after 9:00 a.m. (Don't rely on Hick to save you in an emergency, especially if you notify him by text!)

The Workplaceville police had called the office manager, and told her to relay information to Hick. They said Hick should NOT clean up the snow geese, because they had caught the person who dumped them. They are going to make the perpetrator clean up the snow geese!

Hick said that on Friday, his immediate superior had put the picture on social media, and asked for anybody who knew anything about the situation to contact the police. Looks like a concerned citizen did just that. Hick is going to ask the police for more information when he returns to work.

So...looks like Hick escaped the pokey on this one.