OK guys here it is, to the best of my memory.
When I was a kid, my grandparents had a big chicken house, not big by today's standards, like the Purdue and Wamplers factorys that raise chickens that have no taste, but a real chicken house that raised chicken that actually tasted like chicken.
It was about 30 feet by 60, and they had chickens to eat and had laying hens. At any one time there were 20-30 chickens and roosters in the house . There were 4 or 5 big wooden posts running down the center to support the roof. They were 6x6 or 8x8, can't remember, but they were solid. By one of the middle posts was a water pipe that ran up through the floor to water the chickens. The hole it ran through was big enough for rats to come up through the floor at night and eat the chicken feed.
My grandparents grew up during the depression, and they pinched pennies and didn't think too much of rats eating their chicken feed. They Hated rats.
So we had rat killins.
Every now and then we would sneak down to the chicken house and kill rats. Our modus operandi was to sneak up to the door. One of us would open the door , run in and plug the hole by the water pipe. The other one would turn on the light and shut the door. Then we would casually walk around and beat the rats to death.
By "casually " , I say that with tongue in cheek, because there is nothing casual about a bunch of kids beating a bunch of rats to death amongst a bunch of frightened chickens.
In spite of all the experts' warnings, none of us ever became mass murderers.
And our grandparents congratulated us for every mutilated rat.
Anyway, on this particular night, my older brother and I planned to sneak down and have a rat killin. I was about 7 or 8 years old, and he was about 11 or 12.
It was a partially moonlit night, so we didn't even need a flashlight. We sneaked down to the chicken house like Navy Seals, we didn't make so much as a sound, we didn't even burp or pass gas, which was a major accomplishment.
The plan was for my brother to open the door, run in, and plug the water pipe hole. My job was to turn on the light and close the door.
It had always worked to perfection in the past, with many rats killed.
When we eased up to the door, my brother whispered, " are you ready " ? I whispered back, " Roger " . I didn't know who Roger was at the time, but I heard a lot of people say his name on TV.
My brother threw open the door and ran at top speed for the water pipe . I tried to turn on the light.
Did I mention that even though it was a moonlit night, it was very dark inside the chicken house ?
I fumbled for the light, which was my number 1 job, but couldn't find it. Then I remembered my number 2 job, shut the door.
I slammed the door shut so no rats could escape, then tried again to find the light switch.
As I was fumbling for the light, I heard a THUD.
I got mad, cause I thought my brother had started killing rats , and I wanted to kill the first one, since I had never killed the first one before.
I finally found the light switch, and what I saw horrified me !!!!! My brother was lying flat on his back, sprawled out on the floor, all 4 limbs pointing to the winds.
But that was not what horrified me.
The rats were escaping down the hole beside the water pipe !!!!!!
The idiot hadn't plugged the hole before he ran head-first into the wooden beam and knocked himself out !!!
I started yelling at him to get up and plug the hole but it was too late...... the last rat tail disappeared down the hole.
I mumbled the few curse words I knew at the time, and told him to come on and get up. But he didn't move.
I yelled at him to get up , but he still didn't move.
It was about then I realized he might be hurt......... maybe even seriously................ and then I realized he might ................... be .............. dead...........
My first instinct was to run up and get Granddad and Grandma, but my first instinct was overruled by my second instinct............
I had seen dead people before, but I had never actually touched one....
I slowly eased over to his lifeless body, bent over and peered down. I couldn't see any movement, it didn't look like he was breathing.
I was sure he was dead.
So I reached down to feel a dead man.
He moved and I nearly turned inside out of my skin !!!!!
He started mumbling something that sounded like a strange language, and I couldn't understand many words, except for the few curse words I knew, and the rest sounded like a foreign language, and I remembered the preacher giving sermons of people speaking in tongues, and that only a Holy man or the devil could understand them, I really wished at that point that I had paid more attention to the preacher,
Then he sat up like he was shocked with a cattle prod, and rolled his eyes back in head like that girl in the Exorcist,
I am quite certain that if some of those Olympic officials had been there with a stop-watch, I set the frickin world record for the 100 yard dash, no doubt in my mind.
Sadly, that was our last rat killin.
_________________
Those who trade liberty for security shall have neither.
"Take ye heed,watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is".
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