Eat Mo' Gophers

Not by Norman Rockwell

Hello, hungry people

Like you, I get several spam texts a day. Typically, these involve people who want to:

— Buy my home.

— Lend me money.

— Hire me for a position for which I am “uniquely qualified” and pay me $600/day for just 2-3 hours of work from home with “great opportunities for advancement” and a 401K.

And then there was this one, which popped up just the other day from a number in Los Angeles:

“Hello Mr. Jeff, this is Josephina. When are you free today? I’ll be waiting for you at home; please bring your traps.”

OK, let’s stop things right there for a quick poll:

And yes, of course, I did.

Because I was curious. Was this some kind of kinky-sex thing? If it was, I didn’t want poor Josephina to waste her afternoon waiting for Mr. Jeff to show up with his traps to do God knows what.

So it seemed only polite to let her know that her text went to the wrong person. I texted back:

“I’m not Mr. Jeff. But I gotta ask: Why do you need the traps?”

Josephina got right back to me.

“Huh? Good morning. Isn’t this Mr. Jeff’s number? Isn’t this the DACC?

Me: “What’s the DACC?

Josephina: “L.A. County Department of Animal Care and Control. Is Mr. Jeff there?”

Me: “No Mr. Jeff here. I’m in Florida. You have the wrong number. But what’s with the traps?”

Josephina: “I’m going crazy with the gophers in my yard. I need help.”

This was turning out to be a whole lot less kinky than I hoped feared. And I was all set to hit delete and move on. Before I could reply:

Josephina: “I’ve been to Florida many times, and there are gophers there, too. How do you deal with gophers? Are they currently invading your yard, too?”

Me: “Here in Florida we have tortoises that we call gophers. They aren’t the furry gophers that you have out there. Our gophers are protected and can’t be killed.”

Gopher tortoise (left) and pocket gopher (right) both highly photogenic.

Josephina: “Oh, I lived in Miami for a while. I didn’t know tortoises were called gophers there. Thank you for telling me. The gophers in LA go crazy this time of year. They are destroying my lawn.

And then she started sending me photos like this one:

And this one:

And a whole lot more photos after that.

Josephina: “Have you experienced anything like this?”

Me: “No, not in my yard, thank goodness. We do have pocket gophers here, but old-time Floridians call them ‘sandy mounders’ and sometimes ‘sallymanders.’

Josephina (after sending me at least another dozen photos of her backyard:) "How do you get rid of them?”

And at this point, friends, I just couldn’t help myself.

Me: “What we do here in Florida is we get a fishing rod and a lawn chair and, after it’s dark, we sit down by a gopher hole and bait the hook with a piece of broccoli. Then we sit and wait. It usually doesn’t take long until we get a bite and set the hook. Those gophers can put up a pretty good fight. But once you get a bunch of them, you’ve got dinner.”

Josephina: “Wow, that’s incredible! But aren’t you worried about catching a disease? Gophers are rodents and many rodents have been known to carry the viruses.”

Me: “Well, yes, it can be dangerous. And there are a few outbreaks of bubonic plague every now and then. But once you’ve acquired a taste for gopher, it’s worth the risk.”

Josephine: “What do they taste like?”

Me: “Kinda like manatee.”

I waited.

But that was the last I heard from Josephina.

Which disappointed me. Because I’d love to know if Mr. Jeff ever showed up.

Punching buttons is therapeutic. Please consider punching these: