TROUBLE IN PARADISE:"HOW MUCH BIG?"

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Here is the increasingly hysterical exchange of texts in which my husband tries to get help from D about our wild-animals-in-the-pool problem. To appreciate the juxtaposition between the relative calm of our BN (before-nutria) and AN (after-nutria) life, I include the innocuous text that preceded all the trouble. In all fairness, I should say that our best friend and architect D's level of English is right up there with J's level of Italian, but here, only D has the courage to write in a foreign language.

D to J:
Ok for dinner tomorrow at 8 pm to Cecilia?

J:There are 2 living animals in our pool today. They happily swim and poop in the water. They are now hiding in the filter baskets--very much alive.  How do we get them out?

D:What kind of animals they are? How much big?

J:About 30-40 cm with long tail. They make a cooing, squealing sound. And they are good swimmers. They swam under water when they saw me--then hid in the filter--one animal in each filter. Water rats?  I don't know.

D:Probably they are nutrias came from the ditch. I called Farmer G  that now is not home, but when he returns he will come to see

J:Thank you, D. Life in the country. Full of surprises.....

D:Looks nutria on wikipedia.

Any case you are very original and trendy: not all people has animals swimming into the pool!

J:Farmer G came. He made sure the 3 nutria frolicking in the pool will not be back. I must carefully clean the pool tomorrow.  The nutria left us many "presents" in the pool.

What happened next ? D went away for a week of well deserved vacation, during which there were many more nutria pool parties, followed by daily de-pooping by the clean-up crew (consisting of J, whose idea of vacation was NOT being on the nutria poop patrol)! ARGH!!!

Of course we did not want to bother D during his vacation, so we waited until the day of his return before hitting him up with the long list of things that went wrong while he wasn't looking. How's this for trying not to be alarmist?:

J to D:Are you back home now, or still on vacation? If you are home, please call--we need your advice about a few things.

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