AN ETHICAL DILEMMA

Did I cross an ethical line when I bought a ladder yesterday at Jerry’s Home Improvement Center? Will my new stepladder have bad karma?

I figure, though, that even if it does, it couldn’t be worse than my old one, with its two paint-splattered steps and top, that it replaced. A year or so ago, I backed over it, then hammered out the legs to a usable state. I could live with that, I suppose, but the last straw for that ladder was Saturday afternoon.

I was standing on top of it, reaching up the far side of the house with my DeWalt screw gun, in order to replace a disintegrating tarp that covers scrap wood and stuff that I keep around. You know. Just in case. Our privacy fence on the property line there is real close to the house, handy for hanging my aluminum extension ladder.

All was going well until one foot of my little stepladder poked down into the dirt and then deep into a mole tunnel. Of course, I should have expected it and wasn’t even particularly surprised when the ladder collapsed and I landed in a heap, atop the two metal rat traps I’d brought to set under the new tarp.

The scrap wood had been covered with rat turds. As I was first inspecting things, one had shot by me, two feet from my nose. I’ve been trying to catch her for months. Tried everything. Bacon grease, salmon eggs, chicken skin, combos with sunflower seeds. Now, I’ve caught and executed lots of rats here in the past, but this one is special. Too smart to catch. I even set up a trail cam to watch her come and go during the night from our back-deck water fountain.

The reason I think it’s a “she” is that there had been a whole family. They had learned to cross, like furry trapeze artists, the wire to reach an especially inviting sunflower seed feeder. One per night for about a week, I popped the rat youngsters with a pellet gun from our second-floor deck. The young ones never learned, but that’s when I think Mama Rat got smart and now is the one I’m dealing with.

Hopefully, the live traps are too small for the visiting skunks, opossum, and neighborhood cats that also come to drink. When I catch chipmunks by accident, I always let them go. Although it’s not the point of this story, there’s another moral dilemma involved here.

Last month, one of those cute little chipmunks that are so fun to watch scurrying around, one of those innocent-looking cartoonish critters, cost me $850. The actual pre-car insurance-payout cost was $2,150. The little bastard had found a route into the cabin of my Honda Pilot, that parks in the driveway near our house. Made itself quite a cozy home. I pulled out a bucket of shredded insulation. Dealer had to replace the blower motor and a bunch of other expensive stuff.

No rat ever cost me like that. But I kill the rats and feed the chipmunks. I think it makes sense, but…

Anyway, it’s not a total surprise that our rat is so finicky and hard to trap. Our place is a fast-food bonanza for critters. Ten or so feeders with sunflower seeds. Chicken food scattered around in their pen. Water. Cover. What’s not to like?

Deer cruise through. A family of turkeys. One week, a young bear. I keep a bird list taped to the guest bathroom mirror of the 64 species of birds we’ve seen or heard on or from our little postage-stamp of a property – not to brag but to showcase how Nature is all around us.

Including underground moles. I’ve tried everything. Killer traps, baits, poisons. The only thing that works is flooding their tunnels with a garden hose for a few minutes. Eventually they either drown or go away after a few days of that. But here along the hidden side of the house, I don’t bother. What harm could they do?

That question didn't cross my mind as I crashed to the ground. On my way down, I knocked the extension ladder off its hooks. It landed squarely on my head.

I untangled myself from the two ladders and checked things out. Nothing hurt, not even my pride, since my wife was inside the house. She must have heard the crash, but I guess she’s gotten used to such surprises. I wondered if I yelled (or screamed) loud enough, whether she would hear me.

That was it for my old, tired stepladder. I shopped online for a replacement, but ended up at Jerry’s in Eugene, since I had a $50 gift card that would cover it -- $49.97, to be exact. The card was from our real estate agent, who sold some family property for us last spring, and I’d been carrying it around since then.

I pushed my shopping cart across the store to the ladders, found what I was looking for, and put it in my cart. As I started to leave, I noticed a red price tag on the lowest shelf. “Sale Price. Marked Down. $39.97.”

All right!

But at checkout, I looked at my receipt and had been charged the full price. I explained to the clerk, but she could find no indication that the ladder was on sale. I said, “You wanna walk over there?” So that’s what we did. She looked at the sale tag, wrote down some numbers, and we started back to the register.

She was a couple of steps ahead of me, when I looked closer at the price tag on the shelf. In the fine print, it read, “Sale ends, Oct. 4.” This was Oct. 7.

Hmmm.

I said nothing and took my $10 refund.

Was that wrong?

As for my new stepladder’s karma, is there such a thing as pre-karmic justice? Delivered by a mole, nonetheless? In any event, I’m going to be extra careful when using my new stepladder.

 

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