Squirrels
NOT in the City!
It
has been a long time since I've lived in SUBURBIA.
Since I left home when I was 21, David and I have always lived in CRACK
neighbors. It never bothered us because everyone figured that 2 WHITE
people there, wouldn't have anything to steal. Plus, if you
weren't buying DRUGS
on the sidewalk, you were generally SAFE.
Now,
it's been 15 years and I find living in suburbia disconcerting.
People aren't PISSING
in my ALLEYWAY;
if we had SNOW,
for some reason I think they would even plow our streets; people
pick up the SHIT
from their dogs ... something isn't quite right. The very
strangest PHENOMENON
of all are
their HATRED
of SQUIRRELS.
I know they can be PESKY.
They drive "pretty" birds from your garden [I always
thought they were more interesting than birds. The first STUFFED
ANIMAL I
ever bought with my own money was a squirrel]. I also know that
they can build NESTS
in your attic and can be NASTIER
than RATS
when get cornered. But, that's what the yellow pages are for -
right?
I
knew that I had an all-time LOW
moving out of a city. Our newspaper requested their readers to
send in their favorite STORIES
about squirrels. I looked REGULARLY
for 2 weeks before we CANCELED
our SUBSCRIPTION
[what else would you read?].
What can the stories possible entail?:
-
My
Cat Chased A Squirrel Off the Tree Once
-
While
Trying to Get Food Out of the Bird Feeder, the Squirrel Fell.
-
My
Son Got a Nasty Bite from a Squirrel Once (I guess a squirrel
doesn't know the difference between a hand and a
hand-out!)
But,
here it has gone too far. There are T-Shirts, bumper stickers and
who knows what else MALIGNING
the poor squirrel. I think we should import some crime from NEW
ORLEANS to
give the poor squirrel a break.
I
thought this strange obsession with VARMINTS was limited to BATON
ROUGE. I
was wrong. I had picked up Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion
magazine and low-and-behold there is an article entitled: Varmints
in Your Garden?: How to deal with a squirrely situation. They even
have EXPERTS
on the topic, for heaven's sake! Their ADVICE:
"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
I
miss the crack whores!
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