Okay, not really. Wait, maybe really. I don't know.
Well here's the story. There's been a little rodenty thingy living in our garden for a while, and my parents didn't like that. So they set up a mouse trap for the thing. We did catch the shrew once, but it was small enough to escape through the gap between the trapdoor and the cage. So the mousetrap was set out again.
Only this time, it didn't catch a mouse, or a rodent of any sort. About one week ago, a juvenile water monitor found its way into the wondrous contraption, and(obvious) got trapped. If you don't know what a water monitor is... Google it. Or use Wiki.
Okay, so the thing is, my mom didn't dare go near it. My dad's overseas on work. My brother... Well he's like my mom. That leaves me. And I am not like my mom, or my brother.
For the past week or so, I didn't bother looking at it because I was busy, what with um... Social obligations and all. But today, my mom was pestering me to go do something about our little reptilian friend. Obviously she meant "kill it and dispose of its body".
So I did.
It was about five thirty in the afternoon. The sun was hidden behind a blanket of clouds. Wasn't too hot, so I didn't object. I stepped out into the garden and located the black-scaled fiend. It was curled motionless inside a rusting mesh cage. I strode boldly towards it, picked up the cage, and brought it to the centre of the garden.
"How the **** do you open this thing?"
No, seriously. That was the first thing that came to my mind. Not "eww a lizard". I do not ever go "eww a lizard". Ever.
Armed with a foot-long icepick, I tried stabbing the monitor through the holes in the cage. It was not easy. Even though the reptile had been starved for about a week, it still had its reflexes. It snapped at the spike and hissed viciously, as I tried again and again to impale its sinuous body. Soon, I realised that my current method wasn't going anywhere. I needed to revise my approach.
At that point, I could only see one way of getting around this problem. I walked around the shed and retrieved some gardening gloves from the dusty pile of junk that just... exists... there. I pulled on the fibrous gauntlets and tried to work open the cage. Honestly, that was the biggest challenge I faced throughout the whole thing. Opening the damn cage. After a minute or so. I figured it out, and the trapdoor sprang open.
The lizard suddenly fired up its claws, with surprising speed and strength for a week-starved reptile. It started climbing up the chain-link sides of the trap. But that was just not enough. I have been trained since young for situations like this. I now know what all those years of watching The Crocodile Hunter were for...
So I reached in and grabbed the serpent by the neck, totally Steve Irwin style. It thrashed its long tail and clawed feet in the air, twisting and whipping. I pushed it onto the grass and reached for my weapon. Wielding the icepick like a stake, I performed a classic vampire slaying that Van Helsing would refer to for the rest of his life... If we was still alive, that is.
But, mercy, the black hellspawn wouldn't die. It had a metal spike driven right through its tiny head. I heard the skull shatter myself as I pierced it. Right between the eyes. But still, the tail whipped back and forth, struggling. I raised the icepick again, and impaled it yet again. But to no avail. It just kept thrashing. I was not expecting this. This monitor's undead prowess was astounding. Again and again I drove the spike through its head. It would stop moving, but after I let go it would wriggle defiantly again.
I soon realised that the only way to make it stop was to sever its head completely. My mother helpfully gave me a large meat knife to perform the deed.
Chop.
Okay, it took more than that. Scaley skin is tougher than you'd expect. Perhaps owing to my inexperience with a knife, but I ended up making several wild Jack-The-Ripper-esque slashes.
Yeah, so it died eventually.
I should gain some good experience points from this... I think I'm almost leveled.
You know, I actually found this fun. Not "ah, interesting" fun. Fun. Just, really fun. Everyone should try it one day.
-Joe