Chipmunk Wars: Part IV

The **^$##%^& cat had failed! Why the hell do we have cats if they can’t catch a *&%$#$$ chipmunk?

No matter. “Am I not a super macho male dude?” I thought. My caveman brain formulated a plan; “I shall kill the interloper, defend the homeland, and then maybe eat a sandwich.”

Except chipmunks have sharp little teeth. And they’re fast. And they can fit into little places. “Hmm…” This posed a conundrum. Meanwhile the cat took a dump that merited an EPA cleanup crew. “What were we feeding that thing?”

Unlike a cat, I came back to task quickly. As a monkey with a big brain I needed tools with which to smite my small toothy enemy. The broom? Nah. Mrs. Curmudgeon doesn’t like it when I beat her broom to death. I made a mental note to remind Mrs. Curmudgeon that I was so smart and clever that I didn’t smash the broom for once. She’d be impressed!

I grabbed a beefy D-Cell flashlight. Yeah! Then I picked up a steel wrecking bar. Hell yeah! Then I thought about how much I hate patching drywall. I set the wrecking bar down.

Once I had my ‘smashing thing’ I needed a ‘get into small places’ thing. Ideally the ‘get into small places thing’ would also serve as a ‘kill it from a distance’ thing. I wished I was outside so I could use my boomstick. Life is so easy outdoors. Outside I’d blast it with a shotgun and be back inside making a sandwich before it hit the ground. In the house I had to accept close quarters combat. Hand to hand fighting with a flashlight/club against a mere rodent?!? Pathetic!

Eventually I came up with an idea. I have a Walther PPK replica air pistol. It looks really cool but it has a 3” sight plane and shoots BBs that can’t do much more than put your eye out and/or knock over Shatter-Blast targets. Maybe I should ask Santa for a little pellet rifle?

I knew that the pistol was too weak to do in a chipmunk. I’d shot one with it before. Hitting a zooming chipmunk was a superlative feat of quick draw marksmanship. Once I pulled off the impossible, the shot wasn’t even lethal. The chipmunk had just shaken it off and run away. At least the little air pistol could flush the bastard out. Once it was in the open I’d apparently have to pound it to death like Godzilla. The irony of the wimpy air-pistol / flashlight combination was unbearable. I have rifles that could bring down a rhinoceros (or at least a Volkswagen) but I had nothing to stop a beast of chipmunk size.

I forced myself back on track again. “Seek the intruder, kill it, then drink beer.” Mission statement fully articulated, I stormed into the basement.