Squirrel, Interrupted

Our neighbor in Texas used to sit on his porch and shoot squirrels. I know this not only because of the sound of the gun shots, but also because one afternoon one of his successes (sorry PETA) fell from a tree right onto the arced glass dome of my sun room. The dying rodent slowly slid down the glass, spread eagle, leaving a trail of blood in his path.

I carefully stuck my head out of my door and heard, "I'll clean that up."

Now that we live in Colorado with no neighbor so thoroughly invested in the sport of urban squirrel removal, our neighborhood is overrun with the little beasts. They are large and mean.

One evening my son said he saw a squirrel running across our fence with a jar of peanut butter. Being the excellent mother that I am, I told him to stop telling tall tales. The next morning I found a jar of peanut butter in our yard.

Later, my husband came in rubbing his head. I asked him what had happened and he said a squirrel had chucked a bagel at him. "You mean a piece of bagel?"
"No. A whole bagel"
"Was it chocolate chip?"
Eye roll.

We glare at the squirrels because they are evil and they have had peanut butter. And you know what happens when you eat peanut butter. It is only a short amount of time before they are banging down the door for some juice.

Here's where I need to tell you about our fence. Under ordinance of our little district, we cannot have a solid fence facing the park. Accordingly, every other wood plank is removed. This morning when I was leaving for work, there was a squirrel right at my door. When I opened the door he looked at me like, well, like a squirrel in headlights. I yelled "SCAT" and he scurried like mad right over to the fence where he dove into an open space between two planks and promptly got his fat furry little squirrel ass stuck.

All I could see was squirrel butt and fat little squirrel paws air running to nowhere. Again, if you're a PETA member or supporter, then you don't see the humor in that. However, if your family has ever been stalked and/or mocked by squirrels, you may have cracked a smile. If he's still there when I get home from work I'll get out the butter.