T Gets Squirrelly

T. Angel, Lawn Freak, has leaves in his backyard.

Three leaves, to be exact.

“You could name them, bring them in, offer them a cigarette.”

“I don’t think you’re grasping the full implications here,” he said, “I’ve got a lot invested, time wise, in this yard; and if the leaves think they’re just going to fall here waiting for me to pick them up, then they’ve got another think coming.”

While we wait for the rest of the leaves to fall in his backyard – and he certainly does have two enormous oaks back there, so there’s definitely going to be some raking and bagging coming up – let’s take a look at what’s been occupying his time in the last month.

Squirrels. T’s got squirrels.

Frankly, everyone’s got squirrels. You can’t step outside without seeing a squirrel. But what T’s squirrels have in common with squirrels all over the world – and what had failed to register with T as an issue up to this point in his life – is what those squirrels plan to do, and how those squirrelly plans butt up next to his deep, new-found, and almost obsessive love for his lawn.

The squirrels have come down from the trees, in that adorably fuzzy and spastic way they have, bearing acorns, dozens of acorns. And they have fuzzy squirrel plans for them.

Their plans? Bury them. Make dozens and dozens of little holes in the yard and bury acorns. Fill the backyard with subterranean stockpiles of food.

“Squirrels,” says T, “are assholes.”

What does one do, when the squirrels descend?

Well, if you’re T, you buy a rubber-pellet-spewing gun: the Fire Power SRT-SD3, Automatic Electronic Machine Gun, Special Response Tech Edition.

Complete with infrared site and flashlight.

I kid you not.

Ah! The SRT-SD3: perfect for such sporting pursuits as shooting cans off the fence, vagrant repelling, and squirrel expulsion.

T says that he hadn’t planned on buying a pellet gun, but he says that the City has pushed him to these extremes by refusing him the building permit to put a dome over his property.

“Hey!” he claims, just a bit defensively and in a tone that suggested I was envisioning a quart jar with holes punched in the lid, “It breathed!”

I know he is kidding, but now that the dome plans have fallen through, he’s making noises about putting in a moat.

The alligators, he says, will keep the squirrels out.