I am not usually squeamish, but I did something this week that made me shudder.  

I could not avoid it.  It was just THERE!  In a flash.  I swerved, but it swerved, too...and where the tire meets the road I crushed a "potgut".

Thud.  Not loud.  Just a thud.  It was my first Utah roadkill.

I said a prayer and then I laughed at myself for getting so upset for killing a rodent.  The laughter faded about 100 feet up the road when a saw a family of "potguts" marching up the side of the road.  Was it the family looking for a relative? 

Days later the image of that stain on the asphalt was still with me so I began doing a little research. 

I had never heard of these little varmits referred to as "potguts" before.  It seems they are part of the praire dog family. 

And then I ran across a United Press International article from a few years back and all my guilt went away. 

BLANDING, Utah, May 16 (UPI) -- The campground at Utah's Natural Bridges National Monument has been closed because of an outbreak of bubonic plague among rodents, a report said.

National Park Service officials said fleas that transmit the so-called Black Death to field mice, potguts and chipmunks would be killed with insecticides.

In addition to Natural Bridges, rodent plague outbreaks have been reported in Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park and Colorado National Monument.

The United States averages 18 human cases of bubonic plague each year -- mostly in Arizona and New Mexico.

BLACK DEATH!  If these little critters can carry the Plague then maybe I did the world a favor! 

I hope the little family of "potguts" will understand, I really didn't mean it.