Carlito Wreaks Havoc in LA

Machado Lake in Los Angeles has been plagued with an unwanted inhabitant for weeks, an Alligator named "Carlito," or if you're anglo, "Harbor Park Harry." The city wrestled with the gator unsucessfully for weeks, and was forced to bring in gator specialist Jay Young. Young, who charges $800- a day for his gator removal services was unable to wrangle the gator for two days in a row. Yesterday he had to leave the scene sans gator at 10am because he had a "previous committment." City officials said that once the gator is captured it would be held in the zoo for 90 days (as punishment?)


This story upsets me not because there is a alligator in Los Angeles, but because there is an "aligator specialist" in LA who charges $800- a day! Of course the guy isn't going to catch the animal in first day, he needs to milk this opportunity for all it's worth. Chances are he won't get another gator removal call for the next ten years. In fact, I would bet that he was the person who put the deadly flesh-eating animal in the lake in the first place. The "previous committment' that Young had to attend to was most likely a trip to his mother's trailer to tell her that the LA gator business was not a waste of hard-earned Marlboro points (gator wrangler's only form of currency) like she had repreatedly told him, and that his investment in a gator-catching boat was better than her investment in beanie babies in 1998.