exterminating a gopher.

When I was around 12 years old, we lived in a neighborhood that backed up to an almond orchard. My friends and I used to take our BB guns and shoot squirrels and other small rodents.

One year a gopher invaded our front yard and my dad asked me to try to get rid of it. His instructions were simple, stick the hose in the gopher hole, when the gopher comes out, shoot it with your BB gun. Simple enough.

I got my BB gun put the hose in the hole, went back to spigot and turned the water on. Almost immediately, the gopher popped out and started running. I chased it to the fence corner and it realized it was trapped and turned on me. It wasn't big or anything, but it seemed mean enough that I felt threatened. I used my BB gun to push it back into the corner every time it tried to run away. I tried to shoot it, but realized I'd forgotten to pump my gun. So for the next few seconds I pumped the gun as I also used the gun to corral the gopher. I'm sure anyone watching would have been laughing their heads off.

Finally, I got ten pumps into my gun and pointed it at the gopher. The gopher decided it was time to attack and put it's mouth around the end of the barrel. I pulled the trigger and one BB down the gopher's throat was all it took. It was a little too traumatic for me, and that's the last rodent I killed until my mission.