August 24, 2002 - 4:24 a.m.

Watch Out for those damned squirrels

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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