Getting mideival on this mole's keister!

I have a mole. Not on my face, in the back yard. There may be more than one, but I prefer to think of him as a single critter; it makes it easier to hate the enemy.

And make no mistake, this mole is my enemy.

Unfortunately, I’m something of a pacifist. I’m not sure why but with the possible exceptions of flies and mosquitoes, I feel guilty killing anything. When I find a spider in the house, I catch it in a piece of tissue, and then release it outdoors. If it’s wintertime, I’ll turn it loose in the basement, where it immediately sets about the business of making more spiders. It’s a viscous circle, but I can’t bring myself to kill when other options exist.

The mole, though, is testing my patience.

He showed up late last fall, burrowing his way into my back yard from who knows where. I noticed the first small lump in the yard on a Monday; by Friday, the mole had erected a system of tunnels to rival New York’s subway system. I almost caught myself admiring the mole’s determination and Amish-like work ethic.

But unlike the Amish, the mole was doing his thing in my backyard.

It was autumn, though, and soon the first heavy snow fell. I figured I could defer the problem until spring.

It’s spring, and I have yet to “take care” of things. In the past week, the mole has gone about the business of turning my otherwise manicured lawn into a dystopian nightmare-scape of hills, valleys and ridges.

To misquote Bill Murray as Carl the greens keeper, “The mole knows no mercy, they never give up, they never stop, they’re like the Vietcong, the Varmintcong.” Since I’ve seen the movie “Caddyshack” about 600 times, I know not to use plastic explosives to rid myself of my uninvited guest.

That left water, poison and a variety of traps.  I tried the water first, funneling gallon after gallon into the mole’s elaborate tunnel system. The mole, apparently, has its own SCUBA gear. He was back the next morning, digging away unconcernedly.

I went to the store and checked out mole poisons. These are numerous and plentiful. Apparently, I’m not the only guy with an uninvited rodent living beneath his lawn.

But the poisons seemed too cruel to me somehow. I mean, honestly, killing anything with poison seems pitiless and brutal. It’s slow and painful. Nope. I couldn’t do it, not even to a mole.

That left traps. Now, since a mole lives most of its life underground, where people can’t see how creepy it looks (and they do look creepy!) most mole traps are designed to kill rather than capture.

The one I wound up getting is in principle like a mouse trap, in that moving it about triggers a mechanism that impales the mole on several sharp little spikes. Setting the trap is not for the weak of heart; the mechanism packs a punch and is apt to go off in the hands of the schmuck trying to set it. (I’ll be happy to email you photos of my new scars.)

Once set, though, the trap sits there quietly, just waiting for a mole to tunnel beneath it. When one does … ka-whap! Down come the spikes. Death for the mole comes quickly, or so I hope.

I set the trap yesterday. So far, the mole has managed to avoid it. But his days on this earth are numbered, of that I have no doubt. My bedroom window looks out over the backyard and I had a hard time falling asleep last night, waiting for the ka-whap sound that will signal the rodent’s demise.

The guilt may well haunt be forever, but soon I will again be able play croquet out back without mountain climbing gear. 

Missed a week? More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.