Why Does Wildlife Love Us So?
If you haven’t already, first go read my tiny dog adventure about Fat Tony.
Then come back here.
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Scene: Our back yard. Chris has just returned from work and let the dogs out. Chris and I are watching the dogs from inside the house.
Jane: Oh good, Stanley’s pooping.
Mina: (races over to the edge of the deck where Fat Tony was hiding earlier today; begins barking furiously)
Jane: Fat Tony must be out.
Chris: (opens the door, walks outside, takes a look at what Mina’s barking at) Mina! Go inside! Go inside!
Mina comes inside. Stanley follows. Paco, still oblivious to the horror that is yet to develop, is sniffing the grass and completely ignoring the dogs and Chris.
Chris comes inside.
Chris: Fat Tony DIED.
Jane: WHAT?
Jane goes outside. She looks around, particularly at the hose rack where Fat Tony had been hiding earlier.
Chris: No, not there, but inside the fence…by the corner.
Jane: (cranes neck, looks down, and — ) OH MY GOD!!!!!!
Fat Tony is indeed dead. There is a squirrel, looking perfectly normal except that upon closer inspection, he has flies in his eyes and his body is contorted. His body is, in fact, contorted in such a manner that he is holding the chicken wire with one paw and grimacing fiercely and clutching the chicken wire with his teeth.
Jane: Oh my god, our chicken wire killed the squirrel.
Chris: No, because then there would be a puncture wound or something. He probably just had a heart attack.
Jane: But he’s holding the fence!
Chris: But there’s nothing wrong with him…he was probably acting so weird earlier today because he was sick. He probably had a giant tumor.
Jane: Will you call animal control?
Chris: Yes.
(Later)
Chris: Animal control and the police are the same number, and they won’t take care of it. I have to take care of it.
Jane: Then what the $*%@&) is animal control good for?
Chris: Live animals?
Jane: IT WAS LIVE A FEW HOURS AGO.
Chris: (mumbling) A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
Jane: Well, what do we do with it?
Chris: Put it in the trash.
Jane: BUT TRASH DAY WAS TODAY.
Chris: Yep.
Jane: So we just leave it somewhere for a week? Can’t we bury it or something?
Chris: I’M NOT DIGGING A HOLE TO CHINA FOR A SQUIRREL!
Jane: I want to vomit.
End scene.
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To recap: we have now had a skunk, a batch of baby rabbits, and a squirrel bite the dust all within a foot of a house we were living in. Although Stanley could partially be held to blame for the baby rabbits, there is no way any of the dogs were involved with the skunk and the squirrel deaths. Since the pictures this morning, the dogs have been inside with me in my office all day. Thus, the only conclusion I can draw is that we have a strange and deadly attraction for wildlife.
The next abode, perhaps, will be in an apartment building. With an incinerator.
Posted by: ssjane | July 30, 2008 | 5:06 pm
Posted in: This Life