I was downstairs when I heard furniture scraping across the floor above. Steve never moves anything outside of an airplane, so I dashed upstairs with a journalistic attitude thinking, “This is going to be good.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Steve scooted the file cabinet away from the wall. “I got a mouse cornered.”

“Do you want some poison?”

“No!” Steve shook his head. “I want the hoe.”  When I returned with the yard tool, he said, “Now turn it around.”  I watched as the man started hunting a mouse with an upside down hoe, spear style.

Steve stabbed at the critter, but the mouse was quicker and it skirted away. So he chased the mouse and cried out, “Help me! We need to get him cornered.” So I helped him box in the gray mouse again. Steve arched his tool high and brought his weapon down to crush the mighty mouse but the wood handle bounced off the concrete floor and flung the sharp end into his temple. Blood was drawn!

The mouse, sensing a complete moron, got away and scurried into an old heavy metal frame. “Get the hammer,” Steve ordered. (Now it was serious.) With a hammer in my hand, Steve ordered me to the end of the pipe so he could ram the mouse. “Hold the hammer still.”

Now I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to mice, so I wasn’t excited about being that close to a disease-ridden-fur-ball. So I tentatively held the hammer in place, while Steve shoved the stick through the pipe. The mouse plopped out at my feet. Steve yelled, “Hammer him!”

I screamed and brought the hammer down ever so gently on the mouse’s head. (Hey, I’m not out for blood.) The mouse wiggled, and I danced about on my tippy-toes and screamed louder.

Steve kept yelling, “Hit him! hit him! hit him!” The pressure was mounting. I felt like I was in grade school again.

As I squealed, I brought the hammer down on top of the mouse’s tiny head. The mouse jumped straight into the air, and I let out a blood curdling scream that would have stopped traffic on the runway!

Steve cried, “You hit like a girl!” He picked up the semi-conscious mouse by the tail. “I’ll just give it to the cat.”

“Wait!” I cried, “Let me get my camera.”

After the snake and mouse hunting debacles, Steve has decided he doesn’t want to hunt any more!

He was a mighty hunter before the Lord. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Gn 10:9