What's complicated? Life is complicated....THAT's what's complicated. We are in the "golden age" of our lives. That is the age between working, playing, traveling, and spending money without a care and the age of.....well, dying. There should be no stress in the golden age. We should experience peace, harmony, and possibly a bit of the age of Aquarius. That is not happening and it is not my fault. It's my precious Debbie's fault.
Debbie is a Type A personality with an emphasis on the A. While I see myself floating down the mellow river of life, Debbie is in the canoe with me yelling, "ROW! ROW!" She will not even discuss the possibility of my going back to work. To be honest, for the first couple of years of retirement I considered it. Debbie always says, "No, you worked too hard for too long to not enjoy your retirement now!" A seemingly loving and caring response, right? Yes the sentiment is sweet but it just isn't true. I love Debbie with all my heart and appreciate all that she has added to my life but what she means when she says the above is, "No, you are retired now and that means you are free to help me do everything on my bucket list!" This would be fine if her bucket contained anything fun....and inexpensive. Instead, her bucket is filled with restoring the lawn to its former glory, cleaning carpets, moving whole rooms of furniture, buying new furniture, and of course the most difficult of all: Clearing the backyard of all squirrels.
Debbie hates squirrels. I'm a fence rider on squirrels. They are cute and fun to watch. If they poop in my yard I don't know it. But, and this is a big but....they steal Debbie's birdseed without so much as a "Thank you very much". We've tried everything imaginable to keep them out of the bird feeders. We've bought special feeders which squirrels can't access, which is foolish because it's well known squirrels spend the winters in seminars on how to work the latest in squirrel-proof technology. We've put chili pepper in the feeders. The squirrels say, "Yummy! Tex-Mex!" We've placed the feeders in every imaginable spot and the squirrels find a way to get to them. We have greased the poles holding the hangers. The squirrels love it. Pole dancing and sliding is a squirrel's favorite pastime. Finally, I have brought out the big guns.
I don't want to kill anything, especially cute little obnoxious squirrels. However, I have no hesitation in scaring the bejeebers out of them. I bought a slingshot and half inch marbles for ammo. I scared one of them once. Now they stick out their tongues and sing, "Naa naa naa naa naaaaa naa" when I lob a marble their way. I bought a live trap. "Now we'll see who's king of this backyard" I foolishly thought to myself. I trap at least one squirrel a day...sometimes two, and drive them out to a wooded area on the other side of a major highway. They seem happy there but I swear they are finding their way back....or else, the neighborhood squirrels don't use any type of birth control. There is no end to them.
Last night I forgot and left the trap set. I've never caught a squirrel at night and I don't want to catch anything else, like maybe my neighbor's cat. When I got up this morning I remembered having left the trap set so I walked out with coffee in hand to see if maybe an early morning squirrel had wandered in. The grass under the trap was torn up. The grass around the outside of the trap was shredded and the trap itself was bent so bad it won't work again without some serious work. I have no idea what I caught but I can guarantee I will not leave that trap set at night again. I do not want to catch anything that can do that much damage.
I was telling Debbie about the trap and yard later in the morning. She decided to go see the damage. When she stepped out onto the patio she screamed, "NOOOOOO!" My first thought was "I'm going to miss good ol' Debbie". I figured for sure some evil monster was mad about getting trapped last night and was out there about to gobble her up. It turned out she saw two squirrels. One was on the ground peacefully eating bird seed while the other was on the top of the feeder holding it upside down so the seed would pour out.... and she calls them "stupid squirrels". She turned to me and with a look that would cause a chill in a marine drill instructor's gut, told me I better get rid of those stupid squirrels. I told her we should be at one with nature and just accept the fact that squirrels gotta eat too. She disagreed. I don't have a clue how to rid an entire neighborhood of squirrels. I need to go back to work....
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