We’ve been growing cucumbers in our back yard this year. The problem with cucumbers is, you turn your back for a minute on them and they turn into giant, orange, inedible monsters.

They do, however, make excellent rat deterrent projectiles.

Last night, I wandered into the back yard and saw…movement. Having just returned from camping for 3 days (and as a result, having a certain amount of propane readily available), and having a potato gun within reach, I took an orange cuke off the vine.

I shoved the overripe cucumber into the barrel, cutting it to size, and then used an unlit propane torch to charge the cannon. I then pointed the gun in the general direction of the rodential recreation, and pushed the barbeque igniter button.

I had forgotten how loud a report the spud gun had.

I’m not sure whether the cuke-jectile even came close to hitting a varmint, but when I looked again into the yard, motion had ceased. As I was going in my back door, my neighbor B. emerged in his shorts, looking for the source of the “bang”.

I casually came back out. “You’re wondering what that noise was?”
“Yeah, it sounded like a car crash in the alley or something.”
“That was me. I was throwing something at a rat.”
Satisfied, he went back inside.

I need to work on a cuke-gun silencer, I guess.