AND NOW WE RETURN TO MUTUAL OF OMAHA'S WILD KINGDOM

So my sunburn subsides long enough to where I could finally go outside without my skin feeling as if it were on fire.

Only took five days for it to reach this stage. Thank God for small miracles and sarcasm.

Anyway ... my back yard looked like a jungle. By my estimations, I had cut some of the yard about two weeks ago. Other portions of the yard hadn't been mowed in 4-5 weeks. I have a privacy fence and scenarios like this are a prime example why. If I don't cut my yard, nobody knows except me. Well ... and my wife. And I guess Andrew, but seriously ... who the hell is he going to tell? I mean ... he's two and his only words are "Apple" and "Shit".

And believe it or not ... my wife accidentally taught him the latter word. I have the common sense not to curse around the boy.

Technically, I guess he could tell someone that Daddy hasn't mowed the yard in six weeks, but yeah ... it'd just come out "Apple shit shit shit apple apple shit shit apple."

I think the boy realizes how foolish he'd look if he said such a thing so he keeps his little trap shut for the most part.

So anyway, Saturday I decide to do yard work.

I get the mower going and I'm cutting through the grass when all of a sudden I see a brown bunny.

"Awwww," I think to myself. "What a cute little bunny!"

Then I realize, the bunny is missing its fluffy tail and it's been replaced by a long pink thin tail.

The goddamned bunny hops in front of my mower and I realize.

This ain't no bunny.

This is the biggest goddamned rat I've ever seen in my life.

Now I'm well aware of the fact that I tend to exaggerate in this diary from time to time for dramatic effect.

But not this time.

This was like one of those African Bush Rats if there are such a thing.

I ran into the house, grabbed the camera and took a picture of this giant fucking rat.

Am I lying??

Is that not the biggest fucking rat you've ever seen?

IN MY BACKYARD, PEOPLE!!!

Now I make no bones about it. I can handle any bug including spiders, cockroaches, wasps and bees.

I've never met a dog that scared me.

And I've wrestled bears and alligators for kicks.

But throw any kind of rodent in front of me and I turn into a 6'3" quivering vagina.

I'm standing there, frozen in fear as I watch this rat lumber across my yard.

The rat sees me and the piece of shit starts coming right towards me.

Now I don't care if there's a hundred of the hottest chicks in the world watching me ... I will scream like the bitch I am if a rat or mouse starts in my direction.

So I go running through the yard, screaming and flailing my arms.

I then remember that I have a mower in my posession with a sharp blade spinning rather quickly on it. I know for a fact it will cut my foot off if I were to stick my foot under there.

It should make a delicious rat salad if I can position it on top of this killer rat.

I lunge at the rat with the mower and the rat, the little wussified shit, goes running toward the fence into Mattie Gee's yard.

It stands on its hind legs, opens the gate, gives me an evil stare and slams the gate of my fence in my face.

Goddamned rat.

I go back to mowing the yard, my heart racing a mile a minute.

I get back to the area where I first spotted the Rat From Hell (TM) and I spot several teeny baby rats that are newborns. Barely an inch long. Each of them with little pink bodies.

For a split second ... a split fucking second ... I think "How cute!"

...Then I mow them down.

Some of you may think that's the cruelest thing you've ever heard. Tiny, day-old rats being killed by a 250-lb. man.

Fucketh. Youeth.

YOU don't have to live with rats the size of Buick Centurys in your backyard.

And now ... neither do I.

Except that these rats were so small, they were able to escape the blade from the mower.

I backed the mower up and saw then scurrying as fast as their infant rat legs could carry them.

So I took the wheels of the mower and ran over them several times, crushing their tiny rat spines until they laid there in the newly cut grass, kicking and dying.

While their mother, Minnie F'n Rat was halfway to Mississippi at this point.

Believe me though ... the rest of the duration of the lawn mowing, I had eyes in the back of my head, waiting for that rat to help herself back into my yard and knock me silly with a blackjack or tire iron or something for killing her children.

As I was mowing, I saw a bird in the middle of my yard, giving me an evil eye.

I literally told the bird "Don't give me no shit, bird. I HAD to kill those babies."

The bird kept watching me. Never moving from her spot.

Finally, I noticed ... she was sitting on four tiny speckled eggs.

Now, I'm no big fan of birds either, thanks to Alfred Hitchcock and my father's warped sense of humor when he took a five year-old Bob to see "The Birds" in the theater.

I'm cool with birds as long as they stay way up in the sky and ignore me.

When they're sitting in the middle of my grass, cawing at me and spreading their wings as if they're about to peck my jugular out, Birdy and I have got us a small problem.

Everytime I got closer to this Psycho Bird and her eggs, she'd spread her wings and she'd start jabbering at me...warning me ... "Don't you kill MY babies like you killed Ratzilla's babies."

I'm not going to purposefully kill baby birds. I guess it's due to the fact that I respect the bird because I eat a lot of chicken.

But I can't remember the last time I had rat casserole. Which explains my deep-seeded hatred for the rat.

It got to the point where I was arguing with this bird over the mower's engine. I kept promising and swearing I had no intentions of fucking up this bird's kids and the bird kept threatening me with poking my eyes out and making a nest out of my skull.

I left about two feet of grass all around the bird and her eggs and said "See? I'm ON your side, Birdy."

I got finished mowing and went to trim the grass along the fence, way far away from Birdy.

Birdy still wouldn't take her eyes off me, giving me a menacing stare the entire time.

Seriously.

If that bird wants a fight, I'm not scared.

That bitch will be plucked and on my grill before I can say "I'll have your kids scrambled with a side of bacon."

I've got some fucked up animals in my backyard.