This is not a constructive thread. I just need to gripe once in a while. It makes me feel better about the situation.
I'm getting a lot of calls this time of year. Dang few jobs coming from them.
To start with, folks just don't understand what the difference is between a problem critter and one that just happens to get spotted out in the day light. I had two calls last week, one in which some lady saw a coon walking down the street and got all excited about it. "Somebody needs to come get this animal! We have little children playing out here!"
So I asked her, "Has it done any damage to anything?"
"Well, no. But it's walking around in broad daylight!" Then I have to spend my time educating this woman on racoons and how it's not so uncommon to see one walking around every once in a while. Also I tell her that unless he's done damage or taken up residence in a dwelling, there's really nothing I can legally do about it. She does not have a "problem" coon.
Same week, I get a call from some girl at the AT&T call center just down the road here. "There is a fox in the parking lot!" ... Oh, no. How terrible.
One, this call center is in a complex with a few small stores and a couple of abandoned stores surrounded on three sides by a patch of woods. The call center itself is backed up to a blue line ditch that runs through a wooded wind row just across the road and to the river less than a quarter mile away. Yeah. A fox has been here before.
I call her back and she sounds like she's mad at me for some reason. "Well, it's gone, now!" Okay.... Did she really think that it would sit there and wait for me? Or was I suppose to drop everything I was doing at the time and rush right over there to catch it before it could walk to the other side of the lot? Still.... It's done no damage.
But the calls that really get away with me are from those folks that are besides themselves in fear, demanding that someone come get this animal NOW! Then when they find out I charge for the service, suddenly, there's no problem. We can live with this critter.
A week or so ago, I got a call from a lady who wanted me to come catch a couple of coyote she claimed was coming up on her back porch every night. "You've got to come get them! I live alone and my grand kids play here all the time! I'm afraid they are going to kill my little dog! This is a dangerous situation! You've got to do something!"
This call came in one evening while I was in the shower. My wife took the call and informed her that I do charge for the service. While she came to check and see if I could come to the phone, the lady who was living in such fear, with such a dire emergency,... Hung up....Apparently, money is more important to her than her safety.
I've had cattle growers loosing calves to coyotes telling me that my 500 dollar fee for a 10 day line is too much. Well, how much is that one calf worth?
I bet that in the past two weeks I've had at least 15 calls that spoke of some really bad critter, dangerous situation, dire emergency or some impending doom and just as soon as I say, Yes Mam, or Yes, Sir, "I must inform you that I do charge for my services" I'm answered with, "... Let me call you back."
Still, the classic, I got a call I got last spring. Some guy called and wanted me to remove a pair of fox that were denning under his storage building. When I told him yeah, I could do it but I do charge for the service he said, "What?... It's not a free service?" Then I explained that this is a business just like any other service work and he said, "But you can keep the fox!" Ain't that like telling the plumber that he can keep the hair ball he get's out of the drain line?
I tell you! Some peoples kids, ehh?
Thanks, guys for allowing me to vent here. I feel much better now.
