Richmond, it will generally be known, does not do anything by half measures if it is the least bit possible to completely spazz out and make our entire city look like Tardsville, U.S.A.  Civil War generals, mole people, tennis players, nothing is considered to be too silly for half the people in Richmond (the half who live all alone with their 36 cats) to become appropriately outraged and turn the editorial pages into a train wreck of doofutude for the better part of a month.  Until now, however, at least one subject had remained sacred and above the public debate.  Until now.  The matter to which I am referring here is, as you have no doubt already guessed, the assassination of beavers by local botanical gardens.  But first, let’s have a little history.

            It all started a few months ago, in the Ginter Botanical Garden, a Richmond park dedicated to funky trees and other stuff that grows in the ground.  As one might expect, they have a lot of freaky-looking exotic trees that you can go to look at and walk amongst, so when a beaver (who possibly had once been a Mark Trail villain) ran his Impala off the road near the gardens and after stumbling out, surveying the wreckage, and sleeping his hangover off, decided that this would make a fine place to set up shop.  Unfortunately, this entailed him gnawing down numerous trees of botanical significance, and after attempts to have him evicted failed hilariously, it was decided that Mr. Beaver would simply be shot.  The next day, a cap was busted in his sheisty dome, and the problem was solved, or so we believed.

            Unfortunately, about 17 jillion crazy people decided that us shooting this beaver was literally worse than international terrorism.  Indeed, from the general gist of the letters to the editor, killing this beaver put Richmond on an equal moral plane with the Third Reich, and the ensuing beatification of the late xylophagous swamp rat made one wonder why people even bothered with Mother Theresa or Mr. T when we had such a sterling example of beavitude among us.  In short, it got real stupid, real fast, and continues to remain so unto this very day.  The problem is, that Richmond is nigh infested with beavers, and it is generally acknowledged that it is merely a matter of time before one of his furry kinsmen settles back in with a vengeance.  Therefore, I offer to you, o readers of mine, a number of other ways that Richmond might rid itself of future Canadian death squirrels (to use their scientific name, as well as a scientifically awesome name for a band).

            First, instead of just shooting the beaver outright, for all the world to see, let’s make it look like an accident.  Like maybe they could arrange for his cleaning lady to find him dead in the pond with a toaster or something.

            Or maybe they could have it arranged to look as if he were the victim of a driveby by a rival gang of woodland creatures.  The police go say they got a tip that an Escalade full of possums was seen leaving the scene of the crime and then plant some crystal meth in his lodge to make it look like a drug deal gone bad.

            Buy him tickets to a show at the theatre, and when his bodyguard goes to catch a smoke, send a lone assassin up to shoot him in the head.  Then, jump onto the stage, say something pithy, and plunge the South into fifty years of turmoil.

            Then of course, there’s always the option of hiring the Rocketeer to punch a beaver off of a flaming zeppelin, which would make people just as angry as shooting him would, but it would be so totally awesome as to justify any imaginable repercussions of whininess.

            Plant a cactus and allow his natural appetites to be his downfall.

            Make it look like a suicide by shooting him, then leaving a little note about how depressing life in the gardens was turning out to be and how he should have listened to his mother and gone to med school instead of striking out on his own for the big city.

            Buy him one of those old-timey washing machines with the rollers and hope that his tail gets sucked into it.  Probably not fatal, but still highly entertaining.

            Put out an ad in the nearest magical wardrobe and see if we can’t get the White Queen to come on as temporary park manager in charge of oppressing the hell out of beavers.  Admittedly, the never-ending winter that would likely ensue would be a steep price to pay, but one can never be too thorough.

            Kidnap a beaver and hold him hostage.  Buy him a little suit of clothes and name him Bucky, Bucky Beaver.  Then, just take him on the 6 o’clock news and say that if anyone else complains about the assassination of the last beaver, Bucky will be used as ammunition in the new Richmond Gigantic Flaming Catapult of Diversity.