It was only a matter of time that someone came up with the idea. After seeing how effectively hot babes sell espresso, car washes, haircuts and pseudo-professional women’s football, a local entrepreneur took the concept to its next logical step. The Nearly Naked Fireworks stand opened this week in Puyallup.

“It seems like it sells coffee – it should sell fireworks,” stand owner Rikk Martin told The News Tribune.

Bikini fireworks? What’s next? Good Humor Ice Cream chicks in pasties? Lingerie ladies selling organic corn at the farmers market? TNT newsgirls hawking single copies on street corners?

Well, at least all the Fox’s dancers will have jobs waiting if the feds shut down their strip joint.

Poor Puyallup. The last thing neighbors needed was an invasion of pyrotechnic porn on top of the existing scourge.

We’re talking about the rats. The Herald reports that rodents have been roving downtown in recent months. Anti-rat efforts seem to have driven the pack away from businesses, but it now may be holed up in an apartment complex.

At least one civic leader won’t rest until the rats are driven from the city.

“My position is that this isn’t the image of Puyallup we want,” declared Deputy Mayor George Dill. “If we have furry creatures running around, people say, ‘That’s the last time I’m going down there.’ ”

If the rats need a new home, we hear there are lots of open units at the Foss Waterway Esplanade condos.

Spokane is still Washington’s second city and once again Tacoma comes in a close third.

That’s if you believe the official state numbers, which estimate that the Lilac City grew by 0.5 percent over the past year, while the City of Destiny posted a 0.3 percent gain, growing the human gap to 2,100.

We’re not ones to impugn the integrity of the official state demographers. Let’s just say that we were surprised that they had time to crunch our numbers, what with being so busy lately running the Iranian elections.

We wondered about another dubious figure in the annual population tally – Puyallup supposedly surged by 1,800 residents. But then we realized they were including the rats.

We at The News Tribune deeply appreciate our talented business news team. But we had no idea they enjoyed an international following until a source pointed out an online publication of Vietnam Airlines. Apparently the staff bio blurbs from our Biz Buzz blog were rendered into Vietnamese and then back to English. Something got lost in the translation.

A sampling:

“Marce Edwards is the signification newscaster. She has been at The News Tribune fit seven years and has written in the mark technology and majuscule businesses in the South Sound. ... She lives in Tacoma with her cure and two kids. She is a Northwest by birth who likes to garden and refuses to demand an cover.”

“John Gillie writes in the mark tight-fisted signification, exclusive assets and other signification issues.”

“Kelly Kearsley has been a signification lady of the press at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and foreign selling. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s inured to living in cities with insignificance complexes and, in fait accompli, prefers it.”

We didn’t know we had an “insignificance complex.” We are the third most populous city in the state, after all.

Got news for The Nose? E-mail TheNose@thenewstribune.com.