2005-08-11
Mole-sted
We have moles.
Moles are the scourge of the lawn junkie. They burrow under your lawn and create elaborate highway systems which leave long unsightly humps throughout the lawn.
Your choices for getting rid of them are limited:
Get a scary mole trap which is sort of a vertical bear trap thingie -- looks like a torture device Caligula would have been proud of; or
Mash the tunnels down.
Every night when HB gets home from work he stomps around the lawn cursing, systematically attempting to destroy the Mole's inter-lawn transportation system.
One night I looked out the window and he was driving the Durango back and forth back, back and forth, back and forth over the lawn. Yes. The truck. I could hear him laughing maniacally from inside the house; there was spittle on the inside of the windshield.
Babe, Fierce Feline, in her attempt to contribute to the household food supply, brings us small critters on a regular basis. In fact, when I'm out of town HB feeds her less to try to encourage her hunting. She primarily sticks to mice and what we thought were moles, until we finally caught a few moles in the Caligula Trap of Death, and have now concluded that what Babe catches are Shrews, which look like a distant cousin of the Mole, but are much smaller. Moles, it turns out, are about the size of a Chihuahua; Shrews are the size of a mouse. A mouse about the same size as the bottom of a size 6 shoe. Hang on to that fact.
So yesterday I went out to my car and there on the driveway right next to the driver's door is Babe's latest offering -- a dead Shrew. I went back in to report to HB, who chortled happily and gave Babe head noogies. I asked him to clean it up. When I got to work he called me and said that he had decided (I love this) to leave the dead Shrew as a warning to OTHER Shrews and The Fucking Moles that their time ruining our lawn was limited. (The ironic part is that I'm not even sure these fellows have anything to DO with the Mole interstate in our lawn -- in fact, I wonder if the Moles actually eat Shrews for dinner. Nevermind. They represent something evil to HB, so they must die.)
Yesterday was another typical summer day here in lower Michigan -- about 98F and 400% humidity, so Mr. Shrew had a full day to cook. I bet it looked like a wet Cheet-o.
Of course, I completely forgot about this by the time I pulled into the driveway last night, bellowing out the last notes of Walking on Sunshine. I'm always in a tremendous hurry to get into the house because, after all, it is cocktail hour, and I am always occupied with putting the contents of the passenger seat back into my purse, so the car exit strategy is usually somewhat rushed and automatic.
I opened the car door, stepped out of the car... right. Onto. The dead. Shrew.
In one of those rare moments when your brain registers exactly what is happening but is unable to arrest the forward positive momentum of leg and foot, I knew as soon as I felt something remotely soft underfoot what was about to happen.
gissssssssshhhhhh
*POP*
Although not a physics expert, I could piece together what had happened without even looking down. I had stepped on it in such a way that all of it's body parts came shooting out of its head. I couldn't' even look. I screamed. I kicked my shoe into the lawn, and ran into the house, flapping my hands like a little girl.
I called HB and reported what had happened.
"THAT is so COOL! Take a picture of it before you clean it up!"
[blink]
[blink blink]
"I'm sorry. I mistook you for someone who wanted to have sex with ME again at some point in your tiny, mole-hunting life."
After I hung up I made my way down to the den, and, now barefoot, stepped right into a pile of Babe's puke, which gished through my toes.
Good times.
xquzme at sometime today