The Groundhog Trap

The Ground Hog Trap

It all started innocently enough. I sat toiling in my office. I had been melding hot letters into words then hammering those words into sentences. While pausing to stare at the computer screen I wondered what carpal tunnel syndrome is all about? Up until to a few years ago, I thought I definitely had it. I just wondered how anyone else could brave hitching a ride with friends to work while going through tunnels. To me, just commuting to the city to work in an office was terrifying enough so what difference could a tunnel make? When the Doctor clarified that I was fine and that the fuss wasn’t “carpool tunnel” the word was carpal tunnel, I was stunned to learn that one could get hurt typing on a typewriter. I was shocked to learn that my keyboard was out to get me, too. They say, “The pen is mightier than the sword” but now the keyboard has dibs over the pen.

So there I was, trapped in an office being glad that I wasn’t trapped in an office in the city and glaring at all the little buttons placed below a glowing screen. Under a sort of “open door policy”, I had left the door open to allow fresh mountain air to flow through the room. As I diligently plied my trade, I heard something outside on the stoop. It was surprising that someone would be on my stoop at that time. For some reason, I usually don’t get many visitors when I put my pet rattlesnakes out there. (I bet you can’t keep rattlesnakes in a city office. The thought of being without them is terrifying).

My visitor didn’t announce him or herself, so I kept working, assuming that they had business with my snakes or had changed their mind about a visit. So, I kept loading the business end of the computer. (It’s the opposite of muzzle loading, you pile stuff in the muzzle but you fire out the breech). Soon, I heard more scuffling outside. It sounded like my stubborn visitor was sneaking around out there. I braced for a sudden yell or a jump into the office but it did not come so I continued typing away. Then I heard scuffling closer to the door and what sounded like out on the floor, in front of the desk. I had no time for nonsense. There were letters that needed pounded and keys stroked onto the screen to keep the wheels of business moving. Finally, in front of the desk was even more commotion so I was forced to peek over the desk and down onto the floor. There I saw my visitor, who was calmly investigating the office and stopping once in awhile to scratch his back on various edges and corners. He didn’t seem interested in conversation but I figured he was there for more than just a snoop. The day that I have feared had finally come. Could this be a killer groundhog, finally come to collect his due? There, helplessly caught in the whistle pig’s clever trap, I had to consider my fate. The first thing that went through my mind was, “Why don’t I keep the club-like objects and firearms on the side of the room I sit at?” The second thing was, “Is there a spot for ‘gnawed on by groundhog’ on a workman’s compensation report?” Then I wondered, “Do I still smell like salad?” With all those thoughts out of the way, it was time to go into a panic but I didn’t. Something within the threatening way the (possibly) killer groundhog sniffed my book case and suspiciously eyed the animal casts on the woodstove before using the grouse’s beak to scratch his heavily fattened ribs kept me silent and frozen to my chair.

I have been tricked into hand to hand combat by groundhogs before. Over one childhood summer, during the, “hawg’s back forty hayfield offensive” (the “Ghogjihad”) at my uncle’s farm, I had been busy conducting “interdiction missions” on whistle pigs and had been able to tip the balance of the battle by using high powered rifles with scopes to engage the “enemy” at long distances from shaded spots. While holding off one vicious groundhog counter attack of our flank, I engaged a groundhog who made it back into his “fox” hole. I pursued the enemy to check its status and search for papers and found it in its’ hole, head first. Assuming the “Ghog” had expired, I reached in and grabbed it by the tail and hoisted it, triumphantly, from the hole and held it aloft, above my head, to display to my human comrades. It took a little while to discern the difference between what I thought was the distant cheering of my kind and that noise which was actually a healthy, angry, groundhog unhappy with being held aloft by his tail. The groundhog’s plan had worked and he had been able to draw me in like the Persian Army at Marathon. The next few minutes are a blur. Only when finally exhausted from the flight (not fight) and I fell to the ground, breaking the spell, did I see that during my uncontrolled antics of flipping, running, and flailing was the groundhog’s brilliant plan thwarted and he had passed away, this time for real. The poor, brave, groundhog had not accounted for a possible panic attack that would cause me to clench down on his tail and no matter how many times I tried to throw him clear, my fingers would not relinquish their adrenaline pumped grasp.

Since then, my anti-groundhog activities have greatly declined to an uneasy peace but I’ve always suspected the whistle pigs have put a price on my head. I’ve seen them stand up and squint menacingly at me as I drove by their fields. So, I’ve always known this day would come. There, in that moment of destiny, I sat still in my own office, waiting for what was, obviously, a trained groundhog assassin to make the first move. I quelled my best survival tactic, the uncontrolled panic maneuver as I was sure this groundhog would not make the same mistake as my old nemesis and allow me to accidently get a hold of his tail. Finally, as the tension got thicker than a linebacker’s neck, the groundhog simply walked back to the stoop, tried to get his itch one more time on the corner of the door, looked over his shoulder a last time and slipped back outside.

I followed him outside but he was nowhere to be found. He had vanished like he’d been swept away by the wind, leaving behind only the realization that when groundhogs encounter a brush with another species, even in a place strange place, they can handle it better than a human. Revenge served cold.

See you along the stream.