Gators invade the suburbs

I was on a morning stroll in my northern Virginia suburb, when I turned the corner and happened upon a most unexpected scene.A squadron of police officers was conferring with animal control in the middle of the road. Seeking to avoid an encounter with a rabid raccoon or a foaming pit bull, I spotted a neighbor standing in his driveway and asked if he knew what was going on.“There’s a gator in my yard,” he replied. Why We Wrote This A new family in the neighborhood finds a surprise hiding in the garden. While picking tomatoes in the vegetable garden, his 2-year-old declared that he’d found a frog. Upon further inspection, it seemed to be some kind of large lizard, and then, holy smokes, a gator! At which point he rushed everyone back into the house. It turned out he had just moved in over the weekend – what a nice housewarming gift. We shook hands. Nice to meet you. As the animal control team and police walked up the driveway, I followed behind. The tension built as we closed in on the vegetable patch. Through a series of whispers and hand signals, the gator’s location was confirmed. I had to see it to believe it, but there it was, plain as day: a genuine alligator, probably 3 feet long, nestled in between tomato plants, the sun shining off its scales, head hidden, perfectly camouflaged. Clever girl.Just moments earlier, I’d been yawning, rubbing sleep from my eyes, plodding down the pavement. Now, I found myself a bit player in a cops-meet-crocodile-hunter show. Life comes at you fast.Like ballplayers just before the pitch, animal control crouched into position, with thick metal grabbers, nooses, and nets at the ready. “On three,” the lead whispered, “One, two, three!” He lunged forward, making a decisive stab with the metal alligator tongs. The reptile was secured! As he raised the mighty dinosaur in the air, I expected writhing and wrangling, a fight for survival. But the gator was still. The gator was dead. The gator was a toy. A very realistic toy, but a toy nonetheless.I relayed the story to my family over text. My dad reported, “No gators yet in our tomato plants, but will continue to monitor.”My fellow Washingtonians: a reminder that we live in The Swamp, so keep your heads on a swivel. There’re gators out there. I’ve seen ’em with my own eyes. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File Summer storm Rain-splatter on glass skirmishing with wiper blades:framed Performance Art.– Judith Saunders