Gators on the Brain, Part 3

Winterville, N.C., where I live, is a couple hours’ drive from the Outer Banks.

On the main road that runs by my neighborhood are several stretches of roadside ditch that don’t drain quickly after a heavy rain. Within minutes of a serious cloudburst, several temporary mini-canals form along either side of the road. Whenever we get a good dousing, I point this out to my 7-year-old, who is usually too consumed in the back seat by his Nintendo DS to notice. Last time I mentioned it, he surprised me by asking if those flooded ditches didn’t drain, would we end up with alligators in them?

In the 1930s, several alligators were sighted in the New York City sewers, and reportedly killed with rat poison. However, the legend of gators in the bowels of the Big Apple still persists today. So why not alligators in Winterville drainage ditches?

There have been occasional reports of alligators to the southeast of here, in the Pamlico River around Washington, N.C., but to my knowledge, no one’s ever seen one of the big reptiles in the stretch of Tar River that cuts through my part of the state. I’ve even asked the nice lady at the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, and she said she’d never heard a mention of one around here. Not to say it’s not possible, she added, but so far, no.

So when my son asked his alligator question, I should have just said: No, we won’t be seeing any alligators in the ditches beside the road. But I’m a guy, and guys will often say dumb stuff, because we think it’s fun.

So instead, I responded: “That would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” my son agreed. “That would be cool.”

A minute later: “If an alligator came to our neighborhood, do you think he would eat Jack?” Jack is our Jack Russell terrier. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. My son was giving this serious thought. His face told me he was working himself up to being worried the dog was now going to be eaten by an alligator.

For a lesson in how not to parent, see above.

– Frank