My dad is a gentle soul by nature, but he keeps a professional grade slingshot always at the ready for his rabbit nemesis. You never know when that doggone rabbit is going to turn up in the garden, and the last thing you want to be is caught unprepared.
One time it showed up during a family Scrabble tournament and my dad forfeited the chance to score a triple word score using the letter "Q" for what he saw as his golden opportunity to take Bugsy down once and for all. One minute he's sitting at the dining room table, rubbing his palms together over his trophy prospects, and next thing you know, he's crouching behind a rhododendron bush out back.
I can't even tell you how many times I've popped in on him standing stock still by the back door with his slingshot poised to shoot, but as far as I know, the rabbit and all his progeny are still on the premises.
Then there's Uncle Vic, whose been fighting the chipmunk family in his backyard for going on ten years now. After trying every method known to man to rid his vegetable garden of the chipmunk contagion, my uncle finally resorted to smoking them out with fireworks. But those chipmunks are still partying it up under his lawn, and my uncle's got a deck of cards in his nightstand with a picture of their leader on the ace of spades.
With the arrival of the P-Dawg into the Rama clan, however, a new age dawned in the realm of man-on-rodent combat - the age of technology.
When we were first married and living in the hut, the P-Dawg and I discovered a skunk family living under our back porch. After placing several unanswered calls to our city's pest control department, my husband decided to take matters into his own twenty-first century hands. And that meant "internet research."
Luckily, I happened to walk into the computer room just as the P-Dawg, his index finger poised above the mouse button, was preparing to click "Confirm Order" on a batch of powdered fox urine.
Rimarama: "Tell me you are not ordering urine over the internet, P-Dawg."
P-Dawg: "Just hear me out, Rimster! According to the extensive internet research I've been doing, fox urine is the very last word in skunk control."
Rimarama: "Are you freakin' kidding me, P-Dawg? For all you know, some dude peed in a cup and you're about to send him $39.95 for it! I can't let you do this! Please step away from the computer now."
The skunks were eventually exterminated using more conventional means, but the P-Dawg's war on pestilence was just beginning.
I got a UPS shipment this afternoon. Hoping that my new flannel sheets had finally arrived, I tore the package open to find a load of these:
"The Pestacator": A solar powered, underground rodent repellent. The P-Dawg plans to use them to wage war on the mole colony in our front yard.
Let the games begin.
16 comments:
I'll I can say is your Dad needs a whippet!
HAHAHA!!!
I say, stick with the sling shot! ;)
Hilarious! I love your family! And your husband sounds like my Dad--gullible and in love with buying products off the TV or the Internet! :)
Isn't it fun to poke fun at the men folk? I loved these stories. Especially your dad's.
You'll have to let us know how the pesticator works. My husband has tried several concoctions to get rid of moles in our yard.
Um. Yeah. On second thought, forget I was here. I. Was. Never. Here.
You crack me up, Rima.
But can any of your menfolk help with squirrels in the attic? (I wish I were joking. Well, I'm joking about getting your dad to come over with a slingshot. But we really have squirrels in the attic. Yeek.)
This all sounds like the movie Caddyshack.
Couldn't you just open it up to visitors as a critter park?
It's all I can do to get a few birds in my garden.
Are our husbands related? Once Ryan came to bed at like four oclock in the morning really really mad. I asked him what was wrong. Apparently he'd been crouched in the kitchen for hours with a mixing bowl, ready to trap the mouse that had been pooping all over our cabinets. He said "Little effer ran across the counter, flipped me off, and then disappeared."
This is just a great story. Luckily we are in an area without many, so we haven't faced this situation yet. But I bet you are happy he is at least proactive about them!
My husband caught our next door neighbor (in the suburbs) shooting bunnies with a pellet gun FROM HIS SECOND FLOOR BEDROOM WINDOW.
The best part? They ate the bunny.
Good luck in combat.
Ah the rodent wars. My grandfather was constantly battling with the gophers.
His neighbor caught one once and was playing with it by tossing it in the air and catching it on the shovel.
My grandpa showed him the error of his ways by turning that shovel into a baseball bat and the poor gopher played the part of the ball. He never had a chance.
We're just glad he didn't break the neighbor's window across the street.
I can't decide if I'm (a) LOVIN' your Dad (yes) or (b) jealous I wasn't in that Scrabble tourney (yes)!
:)
OK, if that thing works, I need a head's up. I have a family of groundhogs - in fact I think we might be on the third generation of this particular family - who eat everything in my garden. One year, I planted an entire garden of annual flowers. Absolutely beautiful. At the end of the two hours it took me, I went inside to wash my hands, then back out to view my spectacular work. And found a garden with not one flower left in it. In the space of time it took me to wash my hands, those F%&$ing groundhogs ate every flower. This is war.
Hmmm. Nothing solar-powered, in my experience, has been very effective for very long (see: KC's solar powered front walk "lights") I'm dubious.
I need some fox urine over at my house.
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