Pine Nuts with McAvoy Layne: Bedbugs, Nevada raptors and the 2024 Olympic Games
Submitted by Jeff Munson on Sun, 10/29/2023 - 5:29pm
I’m deathly afraid of bedbugs myself, and even turned down a chance to compete in the 1964 Olympic Games because I could not face the possibility of a bedbug nibbling on my toenails in Tokyo on the night before the diving finals.
If I had another opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games in Paris this coming summer I would not go for the same reason. I’ve heard in Paris the little bloodsuckers do not stop at the toenail, but go for the whole toe, then beg for more. But help is on the way.
Apparently, Morocco has a surplus of cockroaches, and what do cockroaches love most in this world to eat? Right, bedbugs. So Morocco is offering to send Paris boxcars full of cockroaches, trainloads full of them, until all the bedbugs in Paris are entirely consumed by the voracious cockroaches.
So then you might want to ask, “What are those Parisians going to do with all those millions of cockroaches?” Well, who loves a cockroach for an appetizer more than a mongoose? And Africa just happens to have an abundance of mongooses. I humbly suggest asking Africa to send as many mongooses as they can possibly spare. And if Africa will part with them, Bingo! No cockroaches in Paris for the Olympic Games.
But who wants a mongoose slithering between his sheets on the night before a 100-meter dash for Olympic Gold? I would suggest bringing in snakes, but when a snake confronts a mongoose, well, I’ve heard the snake always meets his maker. Yet even a slippery mongoose must have a predator, and yes, I’ve been advised by the first person I asked, it is the bird of prey, and who in God’s Green Acre harbors the most raptors? We do, the Great State of Nevada.
We’ve got eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, even a Great Horned Owl, who just craves dining on fresh mongoose, if he can find one. Our Nevada raptors might not recognize a mongoose if they saw one, but once they get used to examining their slithery moves, well, it’s goodbye mongooses.
Ultimately, who better to rescue Paris and eliminate the bedbugs? You guessed it, the Great State of Nevada.
Some people only think of Nevada as a place where the word “book” is a verb. Some who visit Nevada don’t know not to split their tens, and will take the “Under” on the National Anthem in the Super Bowl when everybody in Nevada knows if Chris Stapleton is scheduled to sing the Anthem, he’s going to hold that last note like a grudge, but then, our visitors learn, and they have a good time while they’re at it.”
Actually, when you think about it, it might make more sense to just ask the Great State of Nevada to host the 2024 Olympic Games. We have spectacular venues and great sportsbooks, and thanks to the high desert, we are totally free of the dreaded bedbug.
— For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American." Go here for the spoken word version of this and other columns.
