Your Days Are Numbered

To exactly five. How do I know this? After over a year of hunting you and your kind down using every method known to man, I have finally sunk to the lowest form of ridding one's self of thine enemy. It wasn't like I wanted it to go down this way. Thankfully you were a willing participant in your own demise, gobbling up three of those fluorescent turquoise poison cubes like you were one of Jim Jones' bitches guzzling the People's Temple Kool-aid.  An ugly, brutal death awaits you, but you left me no choice.

You see, I'm over the top pissed that you got yourself out of this Havahart trap that I left you in for the Disgruntled Farmhand to do the dirty deed. You looked so defenseless and cute in that little cage, and I had done enough killing in recent months. I thought I could pass the job on this time. I hadn't expected that you would be able to wrench yourself out of seemingly secure galvanized steel. But you did. You clawed hay up through the mesh, piece by piece, until you could shove it into the corners and wiggle the lock on the door, cracking it open no more than a half inch. It was enough. What are you made of, silly putty?

The DF was hopping mad because he knew - now that you had figured it out - you wouldn't go in the trap again. Fuck you and your metacognition! It's no wonder you are so blasted difficult to get rid of. You can fucking learn!

Screwed I was, since we had exhausted every other method of good riddance. Snap traps killed a couple of your young ones, but then everyone wised up and the grain tinged lumps of peanut butter remained untouched. The bucket trap seemed promising since you guys were always falling into the goat's water. However, I never got that one set up quite right. The electric zapper was a winner until it shorted out in the rain. I'm sure, in time, you would have caught on to that one as well. The black box bait stations never had a chance since you all are neophobic. How the hell did your kind get so smart if you're afraid to try new things?

Having little impact on your overall population, we moved on to interesting weaponry. The DF built this cool frog gig from a bamboo pole.

We taught the seven year-old how to use it.

The best any one of us did with the spear was to knock one of you off a fence, possibly causing some bodily injury. Though that might be wishful thinking on our part.

Everyone loves the blow dart gun.

I don't know how effective it is. A few of you have shown up injured and in need of a more humane end after a nighttime under-the-chicken-coop dart blitz. Certainly not enough death to put any kind of dent in your numbers. On this count, we really don't care. A strong puff through the tube is a super fun way to pass the time while simultaneously developing fine marksmanship.

The DF expressed interest in busting a cap in your ass with a pellet gun, to which I had to persuade him otherwise as I am 100% positive that it is illegal to discharge a firearm within city limits. There's only so much law breaking I can allow around here.

Our foray into various arsenal eventually seemed diversionary. We moved on to destroying what we thought were all of your nests, like this one inside the neighbor's fence.

But you little fuckers set up shop everywhere. You're like the John McCains of the rat world with too many homes to even remember where you put them all.

When we realized that you had breached the sacred boundary between interior and exterior, finding droppings under the basement stairs, we were done with you and the filth leaking from your incontinent sphincters. This war needed to end. I put that poison out where I knew you could get at it, but other less pathogen-laden creatures couldn't. I will try not to think about how you are going to bleed to death internally. Or that a stray cat may eat you and be poisoned accidentally. Or that you might die between our walls, producing a stench so vile that we will have no choice but to open it up and dig you out. Yeah, I'm going to try not to think about all that.