Squirrel War I

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we do not lack for squirrels in this neighborhood. As newcomers to the neighborhood, Chris and I both find the squirrels to be cute. The fluffy tail. The scurrying. Cute. But for one of us (who will not be named), the cuteness is not that endearing. I'll let you guess which one of us does not like our squirrel neighbors.

Saturday morning this conversation took place:

"Let's go to Lowe's. I want to get a bird feeder and some food for the squirrels."

"Really? I don't particularly want to feed the squirrels. The more you feed them, the more you encourage them, and pretty soon, the word gets out among the squirrel network and before long, you're having turf wars on the back deck to see which squirrel dominates the feeder. Plus, they make a terrible mess, and really, aren't they just rats with fluffy tails?"

"No, they're cute. Look at them out there. Chasing each other. They need food. We should feed them."

"They don't need food. Those are the fattest squirrels I've ever seen. Look at that one in our garbage -- he's eating french fries! Why would squirrels want squirrel food anyway when they can have our throw aways?"

"They don't necessarily like our food. See? On the deck? There's a left over frosted mini-wheat from our garbage. They don't like mini-wheats. We should get them squirrel food."

"Alright. I'm just saying that if you feed them, they will come. Then we'll have turf wars and squirrel bloodshed right on our back deck. You just watch. It'll happen."