Moles Part 2

“Houston, we have a mole problem.” I said to space-freak hubby. (He loves when I equate any subject to NASA lingo, even if it’s trite.)

I always thought a mole was either a dark speckle on the skin, a sleeper agent, or the delicious traditional sauce from Mexico. (Sauce has same spelling, different pronunciation. Mol-ay.) I never knew what the mammal was until we moved to the “country.”

The Moles in my yard are not cute. Have you ever seen one?

(Warning: picture is next.)

The Star mole gave me nightmares. Hubby thought it was cool because it resembled what an alien might look like if we ever encountered one here on planet earth.

When I searched the internet encyclopedia aka Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing… I discovered that these creatures are a lot older than us Homo Sapiens. They’ve got 54 million years on us. I’m thrilled that God (or insert your belief here) decided to evolve us via ape rather than mole. (By the way, was that darn missing link ever found?)

I wonder if early Neanderthals had a mole problem. I have no historical knowledge yet I’m theorizing that thats when the Homo Erectus migration began. It’s the mole’s fault.

Of course some cave men remained claiming, “Look, I know Canada is attached to our continent right now but I ain’t going nowhere. Besides, moles make a nice appetizer.”

Over in Tribe 8 before the Bantu Migration cave men probably had a conversation like this: (Groan joke alert.)

“Hey, you share meat with my family,” said Neander 1.

Neander 2 shouted, “No, I kill for mine. You get your own.”

Neander 1 cowered. “Just asking. You don’t have to make a mountain out of a mole hill.”

(Did you groan or laugh?)

Are you nurturing a lawn? One mole can be chaotically destructive. I didn’t count but guessed there were maybe thirty-two muddy hills in our front yard alone. Did I mention we have 5 acres? They remind me of Bugs Bunny when he was trying to get to Pismo Beach.

Hubby has a power mower and plows over their hills. It doesn’t do much. They come right back, creating more mole hills.

There’s only one way to get rid of them. Traps. Yes, kill the darn thing. (Sorry PETA.) I’ve tried the natural ways of dissuading them from burrowing through my yard.

“Plant a stick of peppermint gum in the hill,” one neighbor suggested.

“One stick? Not, a whole pack?”

“One stick.”

“Without the foil?”

Neighbor rightfully squinted at me, suspicious, like I was an un-evolved city slicker.

I haven’t bought gum since college when I needed a fix to keep me up all night studying before finals. I was loud and it was a library. Random student on the other side of the table asked, “Can you chew your gum somewhere else?”

“Sorry. I’m a chomper. My dad is a chomper too. I think it’s because we have big mouths—”

“Ssshhh,” echoed from the two o’clock position but no one took ownership.

I ripped off the corner page of my notes and wrapped my ABC gum inside. (ABC-- “Already Been Chewed”—for those of you who blissfully have no memory of middle school.) Sticking it under the table was not an option. I’m anti-littering. And who does that?

Heck, I didn’t buy gum for my kids when they were growing up.

“Mom, can you buy us Bubble Yum, pleeeaaase?” said daughter, Twin B.

“It’s bad for the teeth, tightens the jaw.” (My problem not theirs.)

“My jaw is fine,” said son Twin A contorting his chin into a forced underbite.

 “It was the dentist. Yeah. The dentist said icksnay on the umgay.” (A big part of parenting was throwing other people under the bus and using Pig Latin while you’re at it. Sorry PETA.)

It worked. From then on, my kids were condemned to secretly begging from their friends.

The peppermint gum didn’t work. The mole hills were bigger as though Murray the Mole said, “I’ll show you,” and he held up his fist of claws. (Murray can’t actually make a fist unless he had a major manicure.)

Solar, sonic and granule repellents had crappy reviews. I didn’t bother. I didn’t want to be the stupid city slicker who didn’t follow the advice of bad reviews. And if I did purchase a magical mole stick my neighbor with chickens and goats would say, “Even I read the reviews.” And it’s not like I could have sold a used solar mole garden ornament on Offer Up.

Hardware store guy suggested, “Fertilize your lawn with grub killer. Moles eat grubs. If there’s no food, they’ll go someplace else.”

“But then they’ll go next door,” I said. “That’s not very neighborly.”

He shrugged then rushed to stop another customer who opened a gallon of coyote urine just to smell it.

I thought about future mole wars. Other neighbor Lars once threw a cupcake at Hubby’s head because he was mowing in the evening when Lars was having a party. Hubby crossed a line. What if our moles cross the property line? Should I find my kids’ old baseball mitt and be ready to catch cupcakes? Maybe Lars would leave a bundled newspaper at our front door. Inside, I’d find a dead mole with a note, “Luca Mole-zi sleeps with the fishes.” (Are you a “Godfather” fan too?)

Hubby spread five 40lb bags of grub killer on our lawn. Next season, the moles were back. This time, Murray was laughing. “Commercial grub killer-- haha… Commercial anything never works—hahaha…”

Someone else recommended The Mole Man company. They lay traps on one’s property and check them every week. But The Mole Man was expensive.

Hubby went back to Home Depot to peruse their mole traps. He came home empty handed.

“Those traps are complicated,” said the man who built his own computer, took apart the riding lawn mower down to the studs to figure out a problem, found it, and put it back together again.

“Which credit card should I use?” I said.

That was that.

The Mole Man was a mole lady with an appealing name, Sienna. (I assumed the mole lady would have a name to match the creature she was stalking. Midge the mole ma’am? Myra?) Sienna took pride in her mole maneuvers. She planted the traps around our property and checked them every week. She caught four but the hills continued to spread.

“There’s one guy still out there,” Sienna said unruffled, reminding me of Dusty Baker late in the game watching from the dugout. As she eyed our property, I thought she should chew on a toothpick. “I’m having a tough time catching him,” she said.

“Murray?” I blurted.

“Who?”

“Oh, nothing.” I didn’t want to admit that I named our mole. I name everything. I had a car named Louise when the kids were growing up. I cried when she went to pasture (traded in) and our kids left for college (not traded in). Currently, we have a massive Western Red Cedar tree in front named Artemis, or Artie for short.

Sienna finally caught Murray. Our lawn was under control. However, our credit card wasn’t.

Got moles? Lawn problems? Moles maxing Mastercard?