Cooper the Climber No More

We were having a bit of a problem at our house with Cooper climbing the screens to catch his favorite crunchy treat, the Musca Domestica . That's the common house fly for those of us whose palet isn't as cultured as Cooper's. It's all cute-like now that he's only 3 # but will become a problem when he gets bigger. A friend told me to get a squirt gun and squirt him with it whenever he starts climbing. Didn't sound wrong. So I went to Farm and Fleet and bought the only squirt gun they sell, a little hand-held number, felt good in the hand, good grip, good trigger. $3.49 and it was all mine. I got it home, loaded it up and lay in wait for the first signs of screen climbage. As luck would have it, I didn't have to wait long.

In my defense, regarding what happened next, when I was a kid (in the before times) there was one kind of squirt gun.  It was a little opaque-colored plastic pistol-usually blue or red. It took approximately 36 hours to get enough water through the impossibly small hole on the top to fill it because there was a little plastic dingus attached. No one knows why it was there because it certainly didn't keep water in. The thing leaked like a sieve from the hole and every available seam.  When you pulled the trigger, an anemic little dribble came out of the end of the barrel. Honestly, the leaking seams had more water pressure. Two 'shots' and the whole thing fell apart, started to biodegrade and that was it. Playing with a  squirt gun. Big fun.

So imagine my surprise, when I pulled the trigger on this bad boy and literally blew poor Cooper off the windowsill and onto the floor looking like he's been in a tsunami. Holy Crap! I'm lucky my aim wasn't better or I would have drilled a hole straight through him. I spent the next 10 minutes alternately cleaning up the 30 gallons of water that came out of a gun (that I only put one cup in to begin with) and consoling Cooper who ran to ME for help, apparently so traumatized that he didn't remember I was the one that pulled the trigger in the first place.

I was relaying this story to a friend over the weekend who suggested that maybe a mister bottle was a kinder, gentler way to go. Cooper wants to know where this friend was BEFORE I purchased the fire hose water launcher that soggied him up! I don't think I'll have to worry about it because he won't go NEAR the window sills now.  Apparently you never know when a rogue wave will happen by and take you out. There is something to be said for pulling the band aid off quickly!