SHOOT THE ROOSTERS (And while you're at it, take out the sheep and dog)

In the middle of Paradise, away from the cold and snow and dark, dark days. What else could one ask for this mid-January?

Well, I hate to complain (I know all my friends back in Chicago won't have a whit of sympathy), but the roosters, sheep, and unattended dog that live a stone's throw away from our casa have forced me to wear earplugs at night, turn up the iPod during the day, and generally curse the management company that never bothered to mention the friggin' farm next door.

Now I've lived a few blocks away from the el in Chicago but never felt like blowing up the tracks. I've had neighbors in Evanston whose hot tub gatherings late at night pushed me to call the cops. (The neighbors finally got the message and shut it down by 11 p.m.) But now, here in the "quiet" colonial town of San Miguel de Allende, I'm itching for a BB gun.

From what I'm told, roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night have started feuds, forced people to move, and sometimes led to violence like the kind I'm considering. I mean, I can handle the bah, bah, bahs of the sheep. Even the whining, barking dog is manageable. But the piercing crowing of the damn roosters reverberates through my entire body like a nightmarish audio electric shock.

The web offers all kinds of advice to rooster weary neighbors and owners: Create a "blackout" effect in the coop to trick roosters into believing it's still night; use cages that allow the rooster to sit and stand comfortably but not to stretch (apparently, roosters stretch when they crow); make sure there are plenty of interesting things for the roosters to do (yeah, right!); and my favorite, clipping the vocal cords. Alas, this is merely a temporary solution because roosters will apparently learn how to crow AGAIN. There used to be a hormone called DES that was used to stop roosters from crowing, but it produced bad side effects and is now illegal in many countries.

No offense to all you animal lovers. But if I could get my hands on this DES stuff, I'd gladly feed it --- better yet, inject it --- and stop the roosters from crowing. Anything to shut them up. In the meantime, I'm off to find a pair of Hearos Earplugs that, according to one obsessed person who conducted years of research, actually "reduced the pounding sounds of the jackhammer to a pleasant thud."

(If you call and I don't answer, you'll understand why.)





Mi dios, yo pienso que puedo tener que disparar a los bastardos