Jimmy Carter's rodent fight...

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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I just HAD to comment on this one, haha! It was suggested that Jimmy Carter was attacked, not by a “bunny”, but by a nutria rat! Cecile replied that it wasn’t much of an improvement… but I’ve GOT to argue that one!

I had the misfortune of having one of these BEASTS in my home a few years ago. It was, by far, the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced! I’d just finished doing something that had me walking down the hallway in my birthday suit… :smiley: … and when I turned the corner, there was a nutria (though I didn’t know it at the time) sitting there on the floor in the hallway! I screamed bloody murder, and scared the hell out of him. He ran for my bedroom, where my children just happened to be sleeping on the floor on a pallet. My middle son had been having night terrors, so he slept in our room on a pallet, and his little brother ALWAYS slept with him, so he was in there too. Anyway, the rat ran in there! I can only imagine how I must have looked! Standing there screaming my head off, in front of my kids who are now awake and wondering what on earth I’m doing, wearing nothing but the idiotic look on my face. My husband comes flying around the corner, nothing on except the television, of course! And the damned “rat” is sitting in there with my children!

We hustle the kids out of the room, my hubby went down the road to my grandma’s house and borrowed my grandfather’s trap (he hated stray neighborhood cats, lmao!), came home and set it. Well, after he caught that thing, it was even more scared! It was HUGE! It was hissing and spitting and making all kinds of screaming noises at us… that thing was pissed off!! I THOUGHT I’d never see anything like it again in my life, but I was sadly mistaken.

Over the next two weeks, we found five of them in our home!! I finally called an exterminator after the third one, and he informed us that the first one we caught would have been the mother, who had come in from under the house, through the insulation, and made a nest in it… then tried to get out again… but ended up in our home. Then after a while, the babies, started trying to find their way out when the mother didn’t return… and they took the same route up as the mother did! He made it seem like they were poor little innocent things who were only trying to find their way outside… and maybe they were… but when you come home and find a big nutria rat sitting on your couch, smoking a damned cigar, and watching TV, it’ll scare the crap out of you, I don’t care how “country” you are!

So, I personally, feel pretty sorry for Carter… I’m sure he was pretty scared of that thing, if it was, in fact, a nutria rat because they are mean little bugars! I’d imagine if any of you had seen one coming at you hissing and spitting and screaming, you’d have very likely tried to whack it with your boat paddle as well!! I know I sure as hell would have… if I’d had a boat paddle… or clothes for that matter!

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See, now if Carter had been able to tell a story like that, he would have gotten a second term.

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Link to column.

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So what you’re saying is you’re a masturbating nudist who tortures animals by breaking their limbs in bear traps (that are stained by the blood of cats) and then finishes off their orphans one by one.

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Given that her husband was also naked, I must assume that the masturbation part is inaccurate. :smack:
ETA: Well, at least, unsubstantiated on the evidence. :stuck_out_tongue:

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It WASN’T a rodent!

Rabbits belong to the order Lagomorpha.

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Welcome to the Naked Dope.

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Welcome! But if you don’t use the word “hubby” you’ll probably get more respect here. We’re all adults here.

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:confused: I’ve been a hubby before, and it isn’t just used around kids…

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Wow!! The assumptions some of you have made!!

It’s crazy that I should feel like I have to defend myself just because I shared a story about finding a huge rat in my house, but I feel I must:

Nope, not a nudist… was actually having sex with my husband in the living room… in the living room because my children were sleeping on the floor in my bedroom… they were sleeping there because one of my sons had night terrors… a sleep disorder which causes you to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, shaking and screaming, it’s very scary. Anyway, I was walking down the hallway, after the deed, to use the restroom. So, I think that should just about cover that one… although I believe it was in the story in the beginning.

As to the part about me breaking the animals limbs off with a bear trap that still had cat blood on it. You’ve got that all wrong! It’s a trap that closes once the animal is inside so that it does not hurt the animal AT ALL… It just closes the door so that you’re able to take the animal to the animal shelter, which is exactly what my Grandpa did with stray cats in the neighborhood, and is exactly what I WOULD have done with the nutria rat, but they told me that they didn’t accept that kind of animal… more along the lines of cats and dogs. So, we let the first and second one go in the woods… then after we caught a third one, we just called an exterminator, he took the animal with him. We caught two more after that, and called the exterminator both times. I don’t know what he did with them, all I was concerned about was that he took them away! I started to think that the animals were somehow coming back into my house after I let them go in the woods… I mean, what on earth would you think? Other than that your house somehow had a huge hole underneath that was allowing them to get inside in the first place.

And last, but certainly not least, the part about my use of the word “hubby”. I am sorry if that somehow offended you. I didn’t realize that I would lose respect just by using a pet name for my spouse. Being as this is maybe my fourth post, I would imagine that I didn’t have a huge amount of respect in the first place, but thanks for that piece of advice nonetheless. Funny that you said “welcome” then bit me by saying that I would get more respece by not using the word “hubby”… yes, lemme say that you certainly did make me feel welcome!

Thank you, Biffy… I would imagine that if Carter had told that story, he might not have been reelected, but he probably would have gotten a little less hell about beating up a defenseless bunny, haha!

I only recently started reading The Straight Dope, and I’m very fascinated by some of the articles. But I do have one question: Is everyone always so harsh around here or is it just that I’m taking it the wrong way?

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Don’t worry, I didn’t get the “hubby” joke either.

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proudmommy77, don’t mind Alex; I think he thinks he was being funny with his bit about the masturbating bear trap thing. And I don’t think anyone quite had guizot’s issue with “hubby” figured out. Welcome to the Straight Dope, put up your feet, eat some of the free popcorn, and set a while. We do grow on you. :smiley:

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It’s just teasing, the same razzing we all do to one another. You told a great, funny story, and everybody immediately assumed you’re “one of us,” and started responding to you accordingly. So it’s a bit of an unwarranted assumption on the community’s part, and a bit of sensitive surprise on yours. Just pretend everybody in the thread is a brother or sister who you’ve known for years and who loves to poke you in the butt, and read again to see if the tone doesn’t make more sense.

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Well thanks all… I suppose the one that really got to me was the “hubby” bit. I laughed at first at the bear trap and masturbation, but after reading the hubby and loss of respect bit, it made everything else seem just as harsh.

I really do enjoy the site. And thought that since I can NOW laugh at that story, I’d share it. Just didn’t expect to feel like I was being attacked afterward. Couldn’t figure out what on earth I’d done wrong, lol. And I’ve called my hubby far more childish things than hubby, by the way! I don’t think that has anything to do with the kids because I just call him Daddy in front of them.

So, back to the topic of huge “beasts” that snort and spit at you… well, back to the nutria rat anyway! Does anyone know why they’re called a rat? Are they actually a rodent at all? And where are they? Are they pretty much only in the south? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of anyone in, say New York, finding one “sitting on the couch, smoking a cigar and watching TV”. But I have heard that they actually have “nutria police” in the New Orleans area who go out and hunt them because there are so many there. This being before Hurricaine Katrina, though… I don’t know if they’d still have that problem now. It did make me feel a lot better to know that someone else in the world has a worse problem with them than I did, though, lol!

OH yea, and thanks for the welcome, all!

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Back in the day when “sports” programs including things like hunting Kodiak bears from a helicopter I saw a show where the hunters were tooling around a Louisiana swamp in some sort of amphibious vehicle and plugging all the nutria they saw. Since the fat bastards are not native to the US and are an invasive pest it wasn’t as irresponsible as it seemed, but they are tasty and have very nice fur so it seemed like a waste.

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Yes, I know those “boats” you’re talking about… can’t remember what they’re called… will have to ask my “hubby”, lol. It’s kinda funny, just about every movie I’ve seen that’s supposed to take place in Louisiana has one of those, but I live here and have never seen one.

LMAO!! Well, the hubby didn’t pull through for me, he took a stab at it and said “uh… a hovercraft?” Don’t think so, dear.

But I’ve heard that some people eat nutria, but I could never… not after seeing them up close. I can eat dear… depending on how their cooked, and only once in a blue moon… and have even ventured to eat gator, but don’t believe I could have cooked what was in my house, hehe. I agree, though, it’s not as bad as it seems to go around shooting them. Apparently, they’re a huge problem around New Orleans.

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You forgot to mention, “and has raised 2 kids to have developmental problems”.

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And I thought Nutria Rat was a high-protein health shake popular in the Third World. :smiley:

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nvm

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I apologize. It wasn’t a nice thing to say. (That word just drives me crazy. To me it’s like saying wifey.) Go ahead and use it. You won’t really lose any respect for it.