A beautiful Sunday morning and you walk outside in your back yard to enjoy the serenity, the peace and the fullness of nature as allowed in residential zoning. You have bird feeders strategically mounted for your viewing pleasure. However you notice a squirrel on one of the feeders and you walk towards him to run him away. Startled, he jumps on top of the feeder and with a look of pure malice faces you and starts yelling at you in squirrel! Angered you wave your hands and yell back but he stands his ground. The feeder is almost eye level and now you have two hairy legged guys standing four feet apart screeching at each other and neither guy wants to back down. Yes, I agree...so far pretty normal.
But two days later Fed Ex delivers a military grade squirrel proof bird feeder designed by a retired NASA engineer. Assembled it looks a bit Dr. Seuss inspired with cantilevers, pulleys and counterweights all made to collapse should the squirrel manage to get past thirteen built-in safeguards. The squirrel approaches, climbs the pole and figures it all out in 3.2 seconds.
So you make a plan. You buy a special titanium water hose nozzle that boosts water pressure up to a million pounds per square inch and produces a thin stream of water like a laser.
You lie under a bush holding a pressurized water hose and you watch and wait. Your mind drifts to that situation at the office and if the boss will....wait!...there’s the squirrel!
You watch the little jerk climb to the feeder. You hear him chortle to himself as he eats your feed. The Squirrel bends over for another sunflower seed and exposes the one place he does not have hair. You smile and suddenly a million pounds of pressurized cold water nails his rear end. The squirrel leaps 10 feet into the air and when he hits the ground you swear you hear him say “ Holy Crap!” He staggers to a nearby tree leaving behind a trail of small brown squirrel nuggets on the bright green grass.
You go into the house and pour yourself a victory drink and ponder your superiority over God’s creatures. Suddenly you hear your wife pleading for you to come to the front door quickly. You hurry and find her staring and pointing out the glass front door, tears running down her face.
She sobs,“That poor creature is hurt. Just look!”
You see the problem. It’s the squirrel--- limping across the yard and casting glances at the front door. A real drama jerk squirrel.
“I know that squirrel, “ you say, “ and the limp is fake. I hit him with water.”
Your wife stops crying, she turns to face you, contempt on her face.
“You? You did that?” her voice is cold. Over her shoulder you see the squirrel holding his stomach rolling around in the yard laughing.
And suddenly you and your wife are in a heated discussion about how you’re selfish and never warmed up to her mother who, by the way, claims you’re bipolar. The squirrel does cartwheels across your view.
The marriage counseling takes months but in the end she leaves you for Wayne, a big wheel in the PETA organization.
Now you live alone, it’s ten in the morning and you sit on your deck unshaven in your ratty old bathrobe, a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels by your side and you chain smoke menthol cigarettes.
You become aware of being watched and see the squirrel sitting on a low branch looking directly at you. He appears to be smiling. This isn’t over.
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