Thibodaux and Boudreaux in the Nutria Coat Business

Thibodaux got a really good idea: Nutrias must be good for something.  So could they be made into coats like some people wear coats of mink or bayou cat?  He raised this question with his part-time girlfriend, Françoise. 

She said, "Hoooeeee!  Dat is one good notion, Thib!  Dey can be sewn together and sold as coats up in Chicago.  Trap a few, and I'll sew their hides together!  Make us some money for good times."

So Thib did.  But, you know, the little boogers are wily and slow to get trapped.  But eventually, he got enough pelts, and Mlle. Frannie sewed them into a sample coat, and they took it up to Chicago to show a furrier.  The furrier, sensing a  bargain supplier, said that he's buy as many as they could deliver.  So it looked like good money, if only they could trap them more efficiently.  

Thibodaux was talking with his buddy Boudreaux, and old Boudreaux say, "Ma frien', why not let the car drivers do the work?  Me, I'll go out each morning and pick up what's there."

So Thibodaux hired Boudreaux to go out each day and pick up the roadkill nutrias. Now on the highways in the morning there is beaucoup of the little guys.  It worked wonderfully, and they were able to make lots of coats for the Chicago market; and even expanded to Minneapolis!

Things were going good:  Thibodaux, Françoise, and Boudreaux got lots of money for beer, boudin, and L.S.U. season tickets: what more could they want?  New pirogues, yes!  It was all good.  But the calm waters soon got rough.

It seemed that P.E.T.A. members appeared in Lafayette and New Iberia, and did their signature naked protest, "I'd rather be naked than wear fur!"  And this upset the Parish's High Sheriff and the police jurors and the local churches.  But, the P.E.T.A. damsels were heavy, and he didn't want his deputies to sustain injuries while carting those hefty heifers away!  So the Sheriff was cool; he ask his old buddy Boudreaux if he could ease up a bit.

After some appreciative looks, Boudreaux proposed giving two of the P.E.T.A. ladies a tour, so he goes, "Mesdames, if you would put on your clothes, I'll take you on a field trip to prove that we don't trap no nutrias nohow.  Honest, cross my heart!"

Two of the more adventurous ladies, though skeptical, took him up on the offer.  So the next day, Boudreaux picked them up with his pickup truck and three go-cups of coffee to put a a smile on the morning.  They rode along the swamp roads, and every time they saw a nutria or muskrat roadkill, screech!  Boudreaux would stop and throw the carcass in the back of the truck.

By the time the three-hour tour was over, the P.E.T.A. ladies were a little green.  Something to do with Boudreaux's driving, n'es-ce pas?  But they agreed that Boudreaux got his hides without trapping live nutrias.

So de problem went away.  "And also dem naked ladies from P.E.T.A.," Boudreaux complained.

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/fashion/18nutria.html?_r=0

Happy Easter!  May the Easter Nutria bring you lots of chocolate eggs!

Post #450!