Warning: Alligator in Lake

My family is from Kingwood, a huge master planned community on the north side of Houston, which was originally developed as an enclave for Exxon executives who were relocating from the company‘s previous New Jersey headquarters. For a long time, it was a place for decent families to get away from the riff-raff (but close enough to the tracks to get good maid service and orthodontic care of course). Somehow, even though we pretty much qualified as riff-raff ourselves, we managed to sneak in unnoticed. As I recall that fateful day in 1973 when the Reeder station wagon limped into Kingwood, it was very late at night and in the middle of a massive thunderstorm. We were noticed later, but by then Mom had won over anyone who may have been inclined to initiate legal proceedings.

Although Kingwood generally has provided a good life, things have been getting dicey around here lately. As Houston has grown northward and actually annexed Kingwood, Houston problems like crime, traffic, and poor shopping options have followed.

Now as if these indignities weren’t enough, I’ve just encountered signs on the Kingwood Lakes greenbelt while running there this weekend saying “Warning alligator in lake.” This of course is the ironically named "greenbelt," a network of asphalt trails running through some wooded areas near houses.

Why is there an alligator in between a subdivision and a golf course? Why not get the thing out of there? What the hell else is coming from Houston--illegal trucks spewing rocks all over the road?

Apparently, the Kingwood alligator is a well known thing. The local community association even tells you what to do if you run into one. They recommend stopping, and letting it retreat. I recommend blasting it with a shotgun. I like how their website says “no one has ever been harmed by an alligator in Kingwood that KSA knows of.” Oh, ok. That’s comforting. I don’t think gators leave their victims enough capacity to fill out complicated reports after the fact. I also like that the site says there’s several alligators. The signs only talk about an “alligator.”

Can’t anyone see the problem with this? I mean, this thing is near old people who make up about 90% of Kingwood Lakes. When they go out on their nightly walk, they’re liable to think its that sweater that their daughter Paula gave them last Christmas (which really was their great-granddaughter Paulette). And while they often walk with a dog that could theoretically divert the alligator’s attention while said AARP-er got away, lots of these dogs are just an amouse bouche for an alligator, so that’s not going to leave a whole lot of get away time.

Also, these people are often with their grandkids, and there’s always lots of other little kids out on that greenbelt. To an alligator, a baby is just a tasty orange snack on a stick.

We also need to worry about teenage daters trying to find some alone space to spin the bottle. That would be a hell of a story to have to tell your date’s dad when you didn’t bring his daughter back from your furtive teenage attempt to make out at the Kingwood Lakes pier. The upsale method of presenting bad news, where you lead off with something worse then scale it back to what actually happened won’t work. “Hey Mr. Smith, your daughter was crushed by a meteor tonight. Nah, just kidding, she just got taken apart by an alligator.” The other bad news delivery method, focusing first on the bright side, wouldn’t do either. “Mr. Smith, just wanted to let you know your daughter’s virtue is still intact. Unfortunately, your daughter is not.” I don‘t see that placating Dad.

I’m not really sure whether you can outrun one of these things. They have Terrell Owens arms for sure, but they seem to scoot pretty fast in the movies. I could well imagine them picking off some 400 pound walker, or an obnoxious punk teenager stopped on his bicycle for a hit of cough syrup.

This is also near the water hazards on Kingwood Country Club golf course. That’s a water hazard? What else? Why not make it a really challenging course? Uncontrollable robots from the future programmed to kill golfers landing in the roughs? Pygmy warriors with curare-tipped blowdarts lurking in the sand traps? Unrefrigerated mayonnaise in the club sandwiches at the snack bar on the turn? Now that would make your next company tournament a real challenge.

How did it get there anyway? Kingwood Lakes are man-made. I didn’t think they connected to the San Jacinto River or Lake Houston (or that there were gators in there either). Is it a female alligator that was texting or putting on makeup and not watching where she was going? Or a male alligator that refused to stop for directions? Unlike other places, that’s our lake. We were here first. We humans get to say what goes there. If we want to let the pretty pelicans or duckies or swans in, but not the gators, or the garfish or leeches or piranhas, that’s our call.

Have to add this to the other hazards on the greenbelt that collectively turn it into Kingwood’s version of the Fire Swamp in Princess Bride:
1. Wasps
2. Coral snakes and water moccasins
3. Weight watchers support groups walking off their recent holiday weight gain.
4. 150 year old couples doddering along while taking up the entire width of the trail.
5. Weekend warrior bicycle guy, who can’t find a real mountain bike trail and has to squeeze in his ride before he and his wife head over to Bed, Bath and Beyond.
6. Winged ants.
7. Ill-tempered ducks (no, really, a duck once angrily ran after me on the greenbelt, squawking in an intimidating way and pecking at my ankles, when I got too close to the nest. I can well imagine some smarmy teenager know-it-all fitting these ducks with laser beams, a la Austin Powers, and creating a real public health nuisance).
8. Older kids, ready to criticize and belittle younger kids riding mechanically inferior bikes, insulting their human dignity with sarcasm, laughter and insidiously clever taunts.
9. Suicidal squirrels.
10. St. Louis encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes.

We really need to get rid of the alligators and have fun doing it. I propose a three-stage plan. First, alert PETA that we plan to kill the alligators. That will prompt them both to protest and to stage a rescue attempt. While we'll have great fun watching the alligators pick off a few of these nimrods, sadly it won’t get us out of harm’s way. The PETAns are too wizened and sickly from not eating meat to make much of a meal themselves. The gators will need to eat something else. Step two is let the local Boy Scout troops have a go at it. Make them read Lord of the Flies, arm them with spears and harpoons and send them out there, Pequod style. Tally ho! I suppose we’d have to make them sign releases though. Whatever. Step three, if the Boy Scouts failed, would be to get some Cajuns from LaPorte or Jefferson County and have them get after it. We’d have alligator with sauce piquant by nightfall.

That reminds me, Happy Father’s Day y’all!