Dak-Rats & My Engineer's Dark Side

Ah, the joys that come with the first few years of marriage.  That is the time when you realize that the love of your life leaves dirty dishes on the counters, shoes in the middle of the floor, and has a tendency to remove his clothing in various stages throughout the house.  It is also the time when he sees that you really don't like to shave, you do stupid things because you don't pay attention, and, if you can get away with it, you levitate in your sleep, spin, and end up with all the blankets...leaving him with NOTHING.  Yes, the bliss of young marriage.  It is also during that time when discoveries that you NEVER thought you would make spring forth...forcing you to face them and just deal with them.  That is exactly what happened to me.  I discovered that my loving, compassionate engineer had a very dark side...one that could be set off by a beast that only stood four inches tall. This is the tale of my engineer versus the Dak-Rat.

The Dak-Rat is really a Richardson Ground Squirrel from the Great White North.  This cute little booger had a way of causing so much mischief that I kind of felt that we must be related.  They would create colonies under lawns, sports fields, and play yards.  They also had a way of eating stuff that they really shouldn't.  And these little guys were EVERYWHERE!

The way you knew that you had a problem was when you would see a single head come popping out the ground.  It reminded me so much of that mallet game that you find in arcades (which I love, by the way).  The cute little heads would pop up and then back down in a blink of an eye.  Sometimes, in a really heavily Dak-Rat populated area, you can really see them all getting into it.  Honestly, I found them to be quite hysterical.  There were times when I would sit with our cat at the window and watch the show.  Of course, my reasons were far different than hers.  She really just wanted me to let her have a go at slaughtering a few.  Alas, I am a mean mom.  It was just like taking a kid to the ice cream shop and telling her she can look, but not have.  I think you get the picture.  Yes, I am very easily amused.

One of the big problems with Dak-Rats were the tunnels they would create underground.  Sometimes, unfortunately, they weren't too deep. There were so many Dak-Rat related injuries caused by ill-starred steps that those in uniform, despite already waging the War on Terror, declared WWIII on the Dak-Rats.  I had no idea how bad it was getting until my engineer brought it, full scale, into our home. Here is my loving engineer who gets gooey eyed over puppies and kittens, going ballistic over a squirrel!  I just could not believe it!

I will never forget the first night it happened.  We were eating a lovely dinner and enjoying each other's company.  All of a sudden, he looks out the window, cusses like a maintainer, and launches himself at the door.  Dumbstruck, I sat and watched as he threw open the door, yells, and hurls his shoe at a squirrel!  I was amazed!  This was a side of him I had never seen before.  Red with anger, he returned to the table, mumbling something that I will not repeat here.  Uh...WHAT???  I think you will have to remind this because I don't think I understand what I just saw.  Quietly, I told him that he would have to go out there to find his shoe.

Now, if this had only happened once, that would be one thing.  But this scene was played out so many times that I finally started closing the curtains before dinner and made sure the back door was shut.  I was getting concerned that the neighbors were going to start talking about the crazy engineer who threw his shoes at squirrels every night.  Really, in a community that had a way of spreading gossip faster than any ladies' beauty parlor, did we need to add this to it??  That was when I started hearing the other spouses' war stories concerning their husbands versus the Dak-Rat.  Men everywhere were absolutely losing their minds.  Part of me wonders if this was happening because they had nothing better to do.  Their primal urges were pushing to the forefront, and the only creatures they could hunt were squirrels.  Even those, like my engineer, were sucked into it.  

One myth that was spreading like wild fire was of a guy who decided to pour fuel down a hole and light it...resulting in a transformer conflagration.  One thing that was not legend was the ample use of air guns (despite being highly illegal on base).  Yards that had dogs were free of Dak-rats.  But ours, which was nestled between a chocolate lab and a bulldog, was magnificently populated, resulting in barking dogs whenever they happened to be outside.  And if I left the window or door open, my husband would have join the pandemonium.

To say that no longer having to see this dark side of my engineer due to being reassigned was a blessing, is an understatement. I was a bit disturbed at how a normally calm, compassionate man could be pushed so forcefully to a point of almost rage.  To this day, he says that he was just protecting our yard so that he didn't have to deal with the base lawn nazis.  Uh huh, right.  As a new spouse, I remember wanting to grip his shoulders and shake him.  Now?  I would chuckle, shake my head, and continue reading my book.  My daughter, being very disturbed by the Jekyll & Hyde change of her loving father, would ask me what was wrong with him.  I would smile and explain, quite simply, that he was just being a man.  Not much more I could really say on the subject, is there?