The Moles in the Holes

By Eddie Kunz

        There it was, right in my front yard. A massive hole. I walked onto my porch to see if it was a trick of the warped window glass, or maybe I hadn’t had enough coffee yet. No, sure enough, there was still a hole there even after I had my morning coffee. 
        “What in tarnation!”
        I looked around my neighborhood and found that as far as I could see, every neighbor had a similar hole in their front yard. My neighbor, Pete, came over to my yard. 
        “It’s the darnedest thing, Bill. When I got home last night, my yard and every one else’s were as perfect as can be as always. Not a weed or overgrown blade of grass in sight. Now each and every one has at least one hole in it. Some even have two! What do you make of it?” 
        “Well, Pete, it’s got to be some kind of joke, right? There’s no way this was a natural occurrence.” 
        “Then how did they all appear in a matter of just a few hours? There’s no way someone could dig these holes that fast!” 
        Pete had a fair point. Even if someone brought in heavy-duty equipment to dig these holes, they couldn’t have done that without making noise loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. Just then, a woman screamed. Pete and I turned toward where the noise had come from. 
        “It went back into the hole! My goodness, it was massive!”
        “Jillian, what was it?” 
        “It was a mole! A giant mole!”
        Jillian fainted, and Bill carried her to her porch chair. Just then, a mole popped up in another yard. Then I saw a second and a third. Each hole had a different giant mole pop out, then go back down before popping out again. 
        “Bill, they’re everywhere. What are we going to do? Can we call an exterminator? If we don’t do something, they’ll run us out of the neighborhood!” 
        Pete was right. We had to do something. 
        “I’ll be right back, Pete.” I ran to my garage.
        “I know it’s in here somewhere! Oh, there it is!” 
        I held the wooden object in my hand, getting a good feel for it. I had never noticed how heavy it felt, and how much heavier it would be once force was behind it. I walked out to my front yard and as soon as the mole popped out, I bopped it with my wooden mallet! 
        “There you go, Bill! I’ll go grab mine, too. Hey every one, go grab your wooden mallets and let’s whack some moles!” 
        Every one quickly ran into their garages and brought out their wooden mallets. In no time at all, the moles were no longer popping back out of the holes, and we had won the day. Sitting on my porch having a beer with Pete, I thought of something rather odd. 
        “You know, Pete, I actually had some fun with that today.” 
        “Bill, believe it or not, I did too! It sort of felt like a stress reliever, didn’t it?” 
        “Yes, it did! This might sound crazy, but what if I made that into a game? You know, like those games at arcades. I can call it Whack-a-Mole!” 
        “Well, Bill, I’ll be the first in line to play it!”
         Later that night I got to work. I figured I would add several holes and lots of flashing colors. Who knew that whacking a mole could be so fun?