In Which Stormy Kills Something
There was a rattlesnake right outside the back door.
Its location was such that there was no way to chase it back to its proper home and it would have vanished under the porch to threaten us, the puppydog, the neighbors, and their puppydog all summer. There was no one to call. There was no choice but to kill the thing.
And lacking a better weapon, kill it with a shovel.
So I did.
It was not quick and clean. The snake was coiled in a corner and I stood on a chair and bashed the poor thing until it stopped moving. It took a good 15-20 minutes of bashing interspersed with me stopping to catch my breath, wrack my brains for another option, re-realize there wasn't one, and bash some more. I was using a heavy shovel so I missed most of the time, but was merciful in that I couldn't really feel what I was hitting. I was also grunting and yelling and gasping for breath, making all kinds of uncivilized noises due to swinging the heavy shovel while in terror that I might get bit and general horrified-ness at what I was doing.
It was absolutely horrible. Just awful. Right up there for worst experiences ever. I had to basically set aside my kindness to living things, general cowardice, and basically my whole personality. I guess it's good to know that I'm capable of that, when necessary. I think.
I did not throw up afterwards. People in books always throw up after killing something for the first time so I was worried I might, but I didn't. I did call my brother so I could babble the stress out to him, and then I was in a very weird emotional state all night. Woke up with a killer headache this morning too, which may have been related to having all the adrenaline in my body used up all at once. 26 hours later I am happy to report no lasting psychological trauma, just limited guilt that I couldn't think of another option, and faint pride that I stepped up and did what was necessary.
So that was what I did the day after my birthday.
tl;dr = Killed a rattlesnake, it was horrible, I hope never to do that again ever.