My Nemesis

Do you see him? Look carefully. Oh, there he is. You almost missed him because he's a stealth little bugger, isn't he?

This, my friends, is my worst nightmare (well, other than having to touch, swim with, or simply think about live fish). Let's call him Nutty. You may think, what a cute squirrel, but I'm here to tell you otherwise. The other day I was walking through my kitchen and we caught each other's eyes. He immediately assumed this position for nearly 5 whole minutes--I do have to give him an "A" for his blending in effort--"if I stay very still, maybe the evil woman will not see me."

Note to self: Hell hath no fury like a displaced squirrel.

It all started last spring. A friend walked out onto my deck to make a call, when she saw something furry leap from a drain pipe up into an exposed hole in one of my eaves. What she saw was Nutty's little tail. That's right, I had myself a little roommate.

After consulting with a pest control company, they informed me that squirrels, in fact, are not considered pests like say, a rat; no, they are a wild animal and pest control will do nothing for you. So what I had to do was hope that Nutty was not up in my eave--and worse yet, that he did not have babies up in my eave--and to cover up the hole with wire mesh. Fortunately, neither he nor his babies were up there.

When I called the pest control company, the woman informed me that was the best thing I could do. She also warned me that this squirrel would get mad. Indeed he did, I just didn't know he was going to get even. At around 10:00 on the night I had covered the hole, I was getting ready for bed when I heard some vicious chirping outside my window. I opened it up to see Nutty with an angry look in his beady eyes. I think he may have even pumped his tiny squirrel fist at me (I can't be certain, I had just removed my contacts). He was bemoaning the fact that he had been evicted from his home--and I still had to hope that there were no babies up there.

To say that Nutty is not a pest is completely false. He is a pest and a nuisance who has taken his revenge out on me by tearing up my yard burying bags worth of peanuts everywhere. And what I'd really like to know is, where the hell are all these peanuts coming from? Then he'll unbury his peanuts and come sit on my deck and eat them leaving shells everywhere. It's like he's at one of those kitsch restaurants where you can throw your peanut shells on the floor, only it's my yard, and I don't have that policy in MY YARD.

The silver-lining is that I don't think he had squirrel babies up there, but if I had to put my money on it, I'd bet that he had hundreds of peanut babies stashed in my insulation.

Pity the fool that gets between a squirrel and his peanuts. That fool is then resigned to have stare downs with the pest, er animal, from the safety of her kitchen. Damn that Nutty.