Possumblog

Fun With Referrer Logs!

Seeing as how I am an expert on everything, it is no surprise that someone just came by Possumblog wondering--why does the boll weevil monument have a monument in its honor

Heh, well, first of all, the monument doesn't have its own monument--that would just be too silly, even for us.

BUT, the Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise, Alabama (erected 87 years ago) is the result of the devastating weevil infestation of the region in 1910-15. Emerging from spaceships, giant boll weevils roamed the countryside eating everything, including things like tractors and barns, striking fear into the hearts of citizenry. The weevils agreed to stop their pillage if the townsfolk would construct a giant statue and worship the beetles as gods, complete with sacrifices of attractive young beauty pagent contestants. The Enterprizians balked at killing off their women just to satisfy a bunch of bugs, and decided instead to build a giant weevil-killing robot, which exploded. Next, they built a giant iron cotton boll, hoping to give the weevils cramps, but this failed because they ignored it in lieu of the actual cotton plants surrounding it. Next, they figured they could use the leftover artillery pieces from the Spanish-American War that they had outside the armory, which did work pretty well, although it was messy to have to clean up the bug parts afterwards. Final eradication did not come until 1952, when the Air Force began a training exercise using tactical nuclear missiles.

So, there you go.