Inspired by Johnny La’s story of his fall, I offer this:
About 20 years ago, I decided to grow some strawberries. A back to my roots thing, as my dad and granddad grew berries for market when I was young. I decided on a 20 x 40 patch in my best garden area, with a water hydrant next to the patch. So I planted my berries, and weeded and watered them every day. I kind of enjoyed it, it was a great stress reliever after work. It also meant that the weeds could not get overwhelming, since I worked it every day. This went on for a couple of months, my plants were growing like crazy, looking great.
Then I came home one day, and saw a large mound in the middle of my patch! A wood chuck had set up residence while I was at work!! I looked at the mound, a large hole in the middle of it, and saw 2 other small holes on the edge of the patch.
This meant war!! I decided to smoke the little bastard out, and then shoot him. I went and got a 9mm pistol I had, a 15 shot semi automatic. I went in the barn, and got a 5 gallon tub of used engine oil, and some rags, plus a piece of plywood. I looked for some matches, but all I could find was a stupid butane fire starter thingy, a cigarette lighter with a long nose. I made sure I had the water hose handy, as it had been very dry for weeks, and the grass in the lawn was very dry.
Now I was ready. I filled in one hole, the farthest away, and prepared some rags by soaking them in oil. I then thought that they might not light very easy, so I went and dumped about a gallon of old chainsaw mix, which is mostly gas in the tub, swirled the rags around, then put them in the hole, and tried to light them. NFG! I kept trying to get the stupid lighter to work, it took a minute. When I did get it to light, I stuck it in the hole. Bad idea. A big boom!, and little flaming bits of cloth all over the lawn! Some of it landed in the oil tub, which was only a few feet away. It went up, and so did a big piece of grass. I grabbed the hose and started putting that fire out, I let the tub burn, as pouring water on a oil fire is a bad idea. I did kick the plywood over the hole. It took a few minutes to put the grass fire out, then I looked over, and the wood chuck was sitting at the top of his hole, smoke all around him, looking at me like “what the fuck did you do???”
I pulled my pistol out, but I couldn’t shoot!! The horses and goats had come over to see what was going on, and they were behind a fence about 20 feet behind the SOB!! So I ran toward him, but he ran under the fence, between the horses, so I still didn’t get a shot. I ran around the barn to get to a gate there, and saw him at the other side of the paddock, about 50 feet away. I shot a couple of times, missed, and he kept running, going through the pasture, to a wooded swale, about 100 yards away. I started shooting, emptied my pistol, but never hit him.
I returned to the garden, my pistol empty, and looked around. The oil tub had burned down to a black pizza thing, and because it was very still that day, the smoke just kind of hung in the air. The burnt plastic smell was very strong. A patch of grass 40 feet in diameter was burned black. And then my wife walked up. She had been pulling in the driveway, when she heard the shooting. She asked what happened? I told her about the woodchuck. She asked if I got him. I said no. She looked around the yard, shook her head, and went inside. It took a long time to live this down…
