The lawn in my backyard is infested with vermin.
Moles, to be precise. Small, pointy-nosed rodents with claws that dig more efficiently -- for their size -- than a host of yellow backhoes or excavators.
Hundreds of underground trails criss-cross my yard, many intersecting at swollen mounds of sod, others branching off to the nearby woods. It’s like a damn mole city, complete with main roads, side streets and dead-ends. Next thing you know, I’m gonna find stoplights and strip malls down there.
Of course, I’m not happy about the situation. I hate these little critters with a passion. Once, my wife and I were all set to close on a house when I stumbled upon a handful of mole trails in the backyard. Needless to say, we didn’t buy the house.
When I first discovered evidence of the dirty little creatures last fall -- a few modest trails leading in from the woods -- I immediately set out to exterminate them. I purchased a half-dozen, cylinder-shaped smoke bombs guaranteed to “cause a slow, agonizing death due to toxic smoke inhalation.”
I dug some holes in the tunnel system, lit a few smoke bombs and quickly deposited them in the ground. After capping the holes with a small mound of dirt, I stood back to listen for their little coughs.
Next thing I know, smoke is seeping slowly out of the ground, turning my backyard into a scene from some eerie horror movie. I half-expected a couple of corpses to rise out of the earth.
To stop the seepage, I began stomping on the ground like some native performing a raindance ritual. This lasted maybe thirty seconds, until I started to feel lightheaded and suffered a psychedelic hallucination involving a human-sized gerbil wheel.
The following morning I surveyed my handiwork, only to discover that the tunnels had more than doubled overnight. Son of a gopher!
My next act of vengeance involved purchasing a fifty-dollar electronic device designed to transmit underground sound waves. According to the box, the device was guaranteed to “send moles screaming out of your yard with a groundhog-sized headache,” never to return again.
I planted the device in the middle of the tunnel system, then flipped it on.
I didn’t hear a sound, but then the box claimed the sound waves were imperceptible to the human ear. Still, I listened for tiny mole screams.
None were evident.
Figuring it might take a little while, I decided to go inside for a bite to eat. Sitting in the kitchen, I began to hear dogs barking close by. I peaked out the window and discovered that my backyard was filled with canines.
Apparently, my sound-wave device had triggered “the call of the wild”.
Even worse, the next day I found that the mole trails had more than doubled once again. My entire backyard had now been claimed as their territory.
I began to have visions of “Caddyshack” in my head. You know, the movie where gophers attack a golf course and Carl, the assistant greenskeeper (Bill Murray), takes a large hose, jams it into a tunnel, turns it on and thirty-foot geysers spring out of gopher holes all over the golf course.
Before I could go any further with my plans, an early snow blanketed the ground. I was forced to wait until Spring to resume the battle -- man versus mole.
Now, Spring is here.
I have trained all winter for this day, both mentally and physically. The yard has thawed, and my arch-enemy awaits. Sound the trumpets, unfurl the flags.
And, if I don’t return, please tell my wife and kids I love them.
Copyright 2003 Marc L. Prey
All rights reserved.
Derived from the comical life of the author -- a fairly typical husband and father who just happens to be a humor columnist.
