License to Kill

Deb said it must run in the family. She was talking about killing small animals. "It must run in the family," she said. "First your mother with that bird and now you and the gopher."

Some call them chipmunks, others call them gophers. When I get to the part about me killing the animal I'll use gophers. It'll sound less like Chip is wandering around our back yard weeping as he searches for Dale.

I bought the pellet gun at the end of last summer. It was a last ditch effort to stem the flow of migrant chipmunks that decided the underside of my front walk was the promised land. Honestly, I never thought I'd actually hit anything. I just wanted to buy a pellet gun. The possible collapse of my sidewalk seemed like a good excuse.

I've shot at the gophers before. I'll spot them out the window and try to open the front door slowly and carefully. Each time as soon as I swing the door open wide enough to take aim the rodents look at me and disappear. And I'm not talking about them being so fast all I see are their little furry asses as they whip down a hole in the ground. They just disappear.

Poof.

This afternoon I had an appointment so I was home a little earlier than usual. I saw a gopher in the back yard. I grabbed the pellet gun out of the closet. I pumped it up. I opened the sliding glass door. From inside the kitchen, I fired at the gopher.

He disappeared.

I assumed he ran down his hole just like he always had. But I was pretty sure there were no gopher holes in that particular spot.

Sure enough, I found him/her lying in the grass. There was a tiny, red spot on the gopher's neck.

I felt awful.

Like I said, I didn't think I'd actually hit anything. I honestly assumed that the gun I had would just kind of break the skin, if anything. Turns out I bought the safari model pellet gun because my projectile went through the gopher's neck and out its nostril.

Fortunately the rodent died instantly. That didn't help with my remorse.

A few moments ago I asked Deb if she would have any trouble sleeping. She wondered why. I told her there was a body in the house (for reasons too tedious to explain it's carefully wrapped and buried deep inside our kitchen garbage). Deb said as long as the gopher corpse wasn't in her bed she wouldn't have any trouble sleeping.

I wish I could say the same.