Loaded for rat

As you can see I just made a trip to the local Home Depot.

Not for a new motion detector.
Not for a new O-rings for the leaky faucet.
And not for one of those extendable Swiffy things so I can reach up high and dust the top of the ceiling fans which haven't been touched since they came out of the box in 1997.

No, those projects can all wait.

I've got mice on my mind.
And my mind on my mice.

If you're from Southern California you are surely aware we live among millions of mice and tree rats. On any given night you can see them scurrying across power lines, running from telephone pole to telephone pole, at speeds that would make any Flying Wallenda jealous.

Now that we're in a drought situation, the mice and the rats find themselves up Shit's Creek without a creek.

They're thirsty. And they're desperate. None of this seems to bother one of my neighbors who runs a patio fountain 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I asked her to shut the rodential watering hole down at nighttime and she just stared at me.

Why am I surrounded by such an asinine crowd of white trash? I thought the point of owning (OK the bank owns it) a million dollar home was to get away from these cretins.

Anyway, in years past, I was willing to ignore the nocturnal activity. They were out of sight, out of mind. But last week, while pedaling the recumbent bike in my garage, I saw a plucky little bastard had taken one of the Heirloom tomatoes from my garden and was pushing the meaty vegetable across the driveway to his little rat nest.

By the time I had leapt off the bike he had disappeared into the bushes. With my fresh bowl of salsa no less.

That tomato across the driveway was a direct shot across the bough.

It's war.
And it's on.

I've already deployed my arsenal. And at this writing have snagged four of the little buggers. Actually, one of them wasn't so little. It was a Norwegian Tree Rat and was about two milkshakes shy of being a Chihuahua.

Had I been true to the principles espoused by Les Stroud, Bear Grylles and other survivalists/hunters that I enjoy on the Manly Channel, I would have skinned it, cleaned it and roasted it over an open fire.

I'm told grilled rat tastes just like chicken. But as luck would have it, my wife had already defrosted a chicken for dinner that night.

Maybe next time.