get to know me better

My back deck is my happy place. On a warm spring day with a cup of tea in my hand there is nowhere I’d rather be.

Seated on that very deck is where I learned, courtesy of my bird feeder, that the smallest of birds can produce the mightiest of songs. It might sound like a insignificant thing, but at the time it was a real revelation, drenched in metaphors.

It was also the place where I was suddenly filled with the urge to have a squirrel come up and eat a peanut out of my hand. See one video with the aforementioned looking adorable and the idea takes root.

An idea that had plenty of grounds for optimism as my property backs onto a forest that is just littered with the things.

In fact, the bird feeder had become a bit of a bone of contention between me and the squirrels, given their unending enthusiasm for climbing up on the deck and helping themselves to the seeds that were clearly meant for their feathered brethren. I thought by putting out a few peanuts every morning I’d be killing two birds, apologies to my feathered brethren, with one stone vis-à-vis the wanting to have the squirrels eat from my hand and at the same time provide them an alternate food source than my bird feeder.

So for the next few mornings I started each day by marching out and placing a few peanuts on the railing of the deck and then retreating back to my lounge chair, tea in hand, always English Breakfast, to watch the squirrels emerge from the trees to appreciate what good fortune has befallen them and then associate it with the kindly-looking human perched in the chair.

That is not what transpired.

Instead the squirrels made right for the bird feeder as always. Like so many sharks on a whale carcass.

In fact, one of the mornings I was greeted with the site of a squirrel buried deep inside the large wooden Blue Jay that was my bird feeder. The visual was this large bird with what appeared to be a giant furry penis protruding from it, waving and twitching frantically.

Tea was spilled.

If my neighbor had been looking out the window at that moment she would have no doubt had the creature arrested and brought up on charges.

“This cannot stand” I remember saying aloud. The squirrel poked its head out and then hopped away nonplussed.

It was time for a scorched-earth policy I thought to myself. “Three words squirrel…” I thundered, “A. Scorched-earth. Policy!”

And then it happened. The squirrel stopped and turned to face me. With the clearest “That’s four words” look on its face that I’d ever seen, or will ever see again.

“It’s hyphenated” I yelled.

The hyphen hung over us like an enormous black monolith in the sky. Not only casting a shadow over the entire backyard, but blotting out the sun over the entire neighborhood.

Words failed, so I went back inside.

The next day the squirrels figured out how to ring my doorbell. Turns out they had grown to enjoy a peanut after gorging themselves on birdseed and I had failed to deliver one. My doorbell cam revealed them taking turns hurling themselves at the plunger. It went on for hours.

“Fuck those squirrels” I said in a hushed tone, not sure if they were still hovering around my front door. Then I added “Deranged peanut-eaters” and a shadow again fell over the house (and I assume the neighborhood).

Ten minutes ago my phone rang. It was from an unidentified caller. Hesitantly I picked up.

It was the squirrels.

I didn’t even know there was a peanut emoji.