Revenge Squirrel

Yesterday there was a dead squirrel in the living room. I suspect Barbieri, who I caught stalking a squirrel in the front yard the other day, although I warned him to stop, since while he's a deadly and effective hunter, he's a small cat, and the squirrels in my yard are big fat healthy monster squirrels. However, one of them, obviously, died. Could have been a heart attack, for all I know, or maybe some kind of demented Mafia chieftain left it in my living room as a message. I dealt with the dead squirrel - which was unpleasant - and put it out of my mind. For about 5 minutes, because after five minutes these incredible noises began from the vicinity of the back door.

I went outside. There was a furious squirrel in the hedge, screaming at Barbieri and Theo. When it saw me it stepped up its complaints, rocking back and forth and saying all kinds of nasty things in squirrel language. I mean this squirrel was worked up. This squirrel was mad. This squirrel was taking no prisoners. Frankly, this squirrel made me a little nervous. I got much more nervous when the damn thing made like it was going to leap at me. In fact I got so nervous that A, who I had summoned outside to see the furious squirrel, and I jumped back into the house screaming and slammed the door. Then we tried to get Jackson to go out and bay at it, but his obsessive/compulsive heart has been won by the piece of army surplus camping foam that he's currently shredding into a million tiny bits all over the house, and he wouldn't abandon it for a squirrel.

The squirrel, screaming insults and fury, ran to the neighbors roof and from there to the front of the house. Okay, fine, squirrel gone, right? Wrong. Squirrel ran around the house to come back and yell and threaten us some more with the righteous vengeance of the squirrel. It must have been the deceased's boyfriend or girlfriend, and it must have seen the cats and/or the dogs kill its lover. So I feel bad for the squirrel, I accept that I have some guilt here by association, but I'm also slightly afraid of squirrels. I kept the door closed.

This morning it was on the front porch, clinging to the bricks, and ready to yell at us. It's only a matter of time before it finds a tiny submachine gun or recruits an army of other squirrels (motto: We're fed up with being killed by dogs and cars and we're reading Machiavelli! Also, we have tiny incendiary devices!) and then, I guess, it'll be history for us. So if you don't hear from me for a while, well, I've probably been fed to the squirrels.