It isn't often that I run into a humorous story involving a gun, but via The Smallest Minority is this link to a post at The High Road about someone's encounter with a squirrel inside his house.
And just to show that I have no qualms about embarrassing myself, it reminds me of something I did once.
Many years ago, we had a horrible mole problem. The little suckers were everywhere, tearing into everything. They killed an entire bed of rose bushes by cutting off the roots. Nothing could be grown in the garden. There were mole trails everywhere--I was constantly tripping in them.
Back then I worked nights, and got home around midnight all the time. One night I came home and just as I was going in the door I looked back and saw something scurry across the yard. I decided it was time to wreak my vengeance.
I grabbed the single-shot H&R .410 that I keep handy for all occasions. Outside I went, to find the furry little blob of a shadow still puttering about on the surface. The security light outside was providing plenty of light for me to ascertain that I was indeed looking at a mole, and I brought the shotgun to my shoulder and fired with great relish.
And I missed. Yes, I missed a mole with a shotgun from about 15 feet. (Even now, I try to rationalize it. The .410 has a small shot charge, relatively. It has a full choke, not much spread. It was dark. But still, I felt quite inadequate as a marksman that night--especially since I had once been quite adept at nailing running rats in the dark with CCI shotshells in an old .22--and I fully expect to be ridiculed for revealing this).
The mole, quite wisely, decided it was no longer safe to be casually sauntering about in my front yard, and ran, as best as a mole can run, which isn't very fast.
I took three or four long, running strides and stomped the little bugger. As the echoes of my Tarzan-like yell of victory faded into the night, I realized that the poor little thing was still alive, though obviously mortally wounded. So I crushed its head with the shotgun's butt.
Poison eventually took care of the mole problem.
And living in the country as I do, there was no one to become concerned about, or even to hear, that I had fired a gun in my front yard in the middle of the night, in case you're wondering.
