When I was a child, moles invaded our homestead. They tunneled around the yard, basking in the soil and in creating an elaborate underground mole world. Betty, my mother, did not like the mole gentrification of our yard. She said that moles were pests who deserved to die, much like spiders and other creepy crawlies. Betty tried poison and home remedies alike, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Month after month, the moles taunted her by creating new colonies (now is the time to interject: my mother made me stomp down the mole runs. I also did not like doing this because, even at age eight, I understood the concept of futility).
Knowing of the family's mole problem, a neighbor jokingly suggested that the rodential ruckus would end—if only my mother were to "shoot the dang things." All of the adults got a chuckle from this outlandish idea. All except one. When we looked at my mother's face, it was as though she had been divinely blessed with great rodent-murdering insight.
Betty bought a Smith and Wesson pistol within a week, and then she began to plan her kills. She preferred to hunt in the morning, "when they're really moving." She would gingerly stomp the mole runs flat and patiently wait for one of them to pop up again—a sure sign that a mole was busy burrowing. She'd carefully aim her pistol at the ground, pull the trigger, and then, BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAMBLAM! BLAM.
Originally, these shots were followed with her call: "Bob! Baaaa-ahbbb. I need you to dig the mole up!" My father, a patient and peaceful man, would grudgingly comply. He and I both disliked being drawn into my mother's murderous plots, as we did not share in her bloodlust. When he expressed this to my mother ("They're just doing their job, and I hate to see the bloody little things") she agreed.
"You're right," she mused, gently caressing the cold steel of the pistol. "If we leave the dead ones in there, it'll be a message to the other moles." After that summer, we never had a mole problem again.
Knowing of the family's mole problem, a neighbor jokingly suggested that the rodential ruckus would end—if only my mother were to "shoot the dang things." All of the adults got a chuckle from this outlandish idea. All except one. When we looked at my mother's face, it was as though she had been divinely blessed with great rodent-murdering insight.
Betty bought a Smith and Wesson pistol within a week, and then she began to plan her kills. She preferred to hunt in the morning, "when they're really moving." She would gingerly stomp the mole runs flat and patiently wait for one of them to pop up again—a sure sign that a mole was busy burrowing. She'd carefully aim her pistol at the ground, pull the trigger, and then, BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAMBLAM! BLAM.
Originally, these shots were followed with her call: "Bob! Baaaa-ahbbb. I need you to dig the mole up!" My father, a patient and peaceful man, would grudgingly comply. He and I both disliked being drawn into my mother's murderous plots, as we did not share in her bloodlust. When he expressed this to my mother ("They're just doing their job, and I hate to see the bloody little things") she agreed.
"You're right," she mused, gently caressing the cold steel of the pistol. "If we leave the dead ones in there, it'll be a message to the other moles." After that summer, we never had a mole problem again.
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