So ‘just” a few years ago I was home visiting my Mom. It was winter and my Mom had a practice of using the unheated garage as a second refrigerator. The left over Christmas Turkey was sitting out there. I came out into the garage a day later and noticed bite marks on the Turkey carcass…large bite marks.
I get out my ruler, check the radius of the bite marks, do some less than scientific calculations and come to the grim realization that we have a rat that’s about two and a half feet long feasting in our garage. I quickly go to the hardware store and ask how large are the very largest traps they carry…I need something that can handle an animal with nuclear proportions.
I get the traps home and bait them up with hunks of cheese. Naturally one of the traps snaps on my hand practically crippling me. This actually turned out to be a good thing because the anger helped me overcome my extreme fear of having to deal with the King Kong of Rats.
I check the traps the next day. Nothing. Even worse, practically all of the cheese is gone. So not only am I dealing with a large predator, but he’s also got a high IQ. I suggest to my Mom that maybe she wants to sell the house. She asks me knowingly if I’ve solved our problem out in the garage. I wince and tell her its time for Plan B. The only problem was I didn’t have a Pan B. I walk back out to the garage, open the door and there he is staring me in the face. He’s brown and white and very large, I could have easily put a saddle on him. Think Ben on Steroids. I close the door quickly and give a good friend a call for some help. My friend Mike has a high-powered pellet gun, actually a pistol. Cranked up this pistol can put a metal pellet through a 3/8” piece of plywood. Mike will be right over…I’m feeling better.
One major issue was our one car garage had about 20 years of crap jammed in the back where Ben Sr. has been living. So its not like he’s going to come out and give us a clear shot. The plan was that I’d start pulling things out of the garage with Mike standing ready, pistol cocked. At one point Mike is looking behind himself, towards the garage door opening. I ask him what he’s doing. He says, “I just want to make sure I have a clear path out in case he tries to flank me.”
We’ve been at this now for over 20 minutes pulling things out. I’ve discovered his bachelor pad. He’s got food from the last three major holidays stashed away, some comfortable bedding, and I think he might have also figured out how to get my old 8-Track player to work. It’s very tense now as there are only four car tires left up against the back of the concrete garage wall. I pull two tires away and still nothing. I get to the second to the last tire and he appears…and he is PISSED.
What happens next probably occurred in less than 5 seconds, although it seemed like an eternity. (Does anyone remember the Monty Python movie where the Knights are given the order to dispense with the rabbit; but shortly afterwards one of the most famous Monty Python lines is spoken by the head of the Knights, “RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!!!)
There is a frenzy of metal pellets being sprayed along the concrete wall of the garage as Ben runs back and forth at a very scary speed. To make matters worse we hadn’t exactly thought through what would happen once we started firing the metal pellets against concrete at close range. Plan B has gone horribly wrong. We're now standing in a shower of “friendly fire“ as the metal pellets are ricocheting all over the garage. In between all of the screaming and hands covering faces, Ben Sr. escapes out of the garage unharmed.
After checking body parts and making sure we could still see with both eyes, we retire for some well deserved beverages. I know though in the back of my mind that he’ll be back. And I was right. The next day the only things left in the garage were the four traps, and one of them was closed on X-Ben Sr. Victory was mine.
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