That is a good one, now I guess I have to tell one on myself. Back when I had first moved to upstate SC, I had found anold farmhouse that was empty and talked the elderly lady who owned it into renting it to me. Trouble was, the previous tenants had stacked garbage up on the porch and rats had moved in. I cleaned things up but still could not get rid of all the unwelcome varmints. I figured out that they were getting into the house at night through a crack around the sink drain. The sink was one of those old ones that hung on the wall, with no cabinet underneath, so one night I set a No.1 steel trap under the sink wher I figured the rat would land when he came in and hit the floor. Sure enough, I awoke in the wee hours to sounds of scurrying rat feet and then a cold steel SNAP when the trap tripped. I had my .357 loaded with rat shot, so I grabbed it and ran buck naked to the kitchen, where the rat was trying vainly to jump back through the crack around the drain pipe with that steel trap holding him back. There was one of those woodedn backed dustpan brooms laying there, so rather than waste a shell on it I grabbed it and clobbered him over the head with it. Just then his buddy, whose presence I was unaware of, decided it was time for him to find a more friendly neighborhood, comes out of the pantry, and runs ACROSS MY BARE FOOT headed for the old sink and his escape to safety. Maybe it was his haste or maybe he tripped over his buddy's corpse, but either way, he missed his first jump towards the sink drain, landed back on the floor and leaped back up at it again. Now picture this, I'm standing in the kitchen, with nothing between me and the Good Lord but a .357 Ruger in my right hand, and a dust pan broom in my left. As the rat leaped at his escape hole the second time, I cocked that Ruger and fired from the hip, blasting the rat in mid-leap, and peppering the plaster wall behind the sink with No 10 shot. Needless to say it was awhile before I could get back to sleep that night!
A few days later I built a cabinet under the old sink, hiding all the rat shot holes in the plaster. I guess word got around the local rat colony, because I never had any more trouble with them after that!