Actual phone conversation from this weekend:

“Hey Ma, it’s me. Just calling to see how y’all’s Easter weekend is going.”

“Your Daddy, I swear. You not gonna believe what he’s done now. You know how the alligators get to moving this time of year. Well, he saw a baby one, about three feet long, crossing the road in front of the house. He didn’t want a gator in our yard, so he picked it up and threw it into the back of his pickup. He wanted to show it to me before he went and dumped it in the swamp, so I came out to the carport to look at it. It started to crawl out of the back of the truck, so your Daddy grabbed it by the tail to pull it back in. The damn thing spun around on him and bit his hand!”

“You’re kidding! Did he go to the hospital?”

“No! You know how he is. He had me put peroxide on it and bandage it, then he went and threw the gator into a bayou somewhere. He’s out there now installing an air conditioner. We got to go to a crawfish boil tonight for some Japanese people visiting town. That’s gonna be some story for them to hear, I imagine.”

It’s good to be from south Louisiana. Bonne Paques, y’all.