Everybody Loves Squirrels
By Richard Gerard
Copyright 2009 by Richard Gerard
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No squirrels were harmed in the writing of this story.
Marian was now a lonely old woman. Her husband Phillip had departed this world early, leaving her to raise their son Jake, alone. With no one nearby to help, she and Jake leaned on each other to get by. The small payout from Phillip’s job, as well as the Social Security benefits they received, were enough to pay the bills. However, the void left by his death could only be filled with love. Over time, the bond between them grew stronger, and with each others’ support, Phillip became a happy memory.
As Jake progressed into manhood, he took an interest in carpentry, building bookcases and other simple pieces with his father’s old tools. Marian was proud of the work he was doing, replacing the old furniture in their house with his new creations. As his skills grew, Marian and Jake even started selling some pieces, making enough money to buy some new woodworking equipment. By the time Jake finished high school, his work was well known throughout the county, and the meager garage bulged into a fully equipped cabinet shop.
Jake had already decided to skip college. He loved woodworking, and continued to make beautiful furniture. After two years, he had saved enough money to not only move out of his mom’s house, but to put a down payment on a small farmhouse. The barn that came with it was large enough to allow Jake to expand his shop into a real business. Jake tried for several years to grow his business, but the rural area Jake had always lived in didn’t seem able to support a custom furniture shop. Jake didn’t want to leave his mom, but she was stubborn and planned to die in her old home. For his business to thrive, Jake made the decision to move towards a larger metropolitan area where he had previously sold a few pieces.
He ended up about five hours away from his mom, but always came home at least once a month, and called weekly. Sometimes, he would bring her beautiful boxes or other pieces that he made. As Jake and his business matured, the visits and phone calls diminished, but Jake still saw her when he could.
When her son moved out and bought the farmhouse, Marian grew bored and depressed. The empty nest syndrome blanketed her and she became withdrawn from her neighbors and friends. They tried to cheer her, dragging her to various functions, but she couldn’t overcome the sadness. Although she always put on a good front for Jake, her deteriorating happiness when he wasn’t around caused the others to slowly abandon her. Over time, their visits diminished to phone calls, and then to nothing.
Marian spent most of her free time on the back of her wraparound porch. From there, she could watch the birds and listen to their wonderful music. Their carols brought her a glimmer of happiness. To attract more birds, Marian asked Jake to make her a birdfeeder, and maybe a few houses on one of his visits. Two months later, when Jake returned to visit again, he brought with him two bird feeders and a few houses of varying sizes. He set one feeder on a pole stuck into the ground and the other hung from a low branch. After filling them with food and nailing the birdhouses around the yard, Jake returned to his mom on the porch. He hoped that these would help her out of the depression she tried so hard to hide.
The birds welcomed the new food stores, and soon, most of the houses had active nests in them. Marion spent more time on the porch, watching their comings and goings. This made her days more bearable. Sometimes though, a squirrel would jump onto a feeder and scare away some birds. Although Marion thought they were cute, she didn’t want her precious birds driven away. After a few weeks, the ever curious squirrels managed to pry up the lid to one of the feeders, allowing them access to the seed stored inside. Marion decided the squirrels must go, and asked Jake to bring some poison down on his next visit. Jake loved squirrels. He didn’t want to kill them off, so he built her some squirrel feeders. He borrowed the design of one of them from a picture he had seen in a catalog. It held a dried ear of corn, and swiveled around when a squirrel jumped onto it to feed. Jake hoped the access to easy, tasty food would keep the squirrels out of the bird feeders. Marion was doubtful of the idea and only allowed him to put the new feeders out after extracting a promise of extermination if they didn’t work. They worked.
Within a few hours, the squirrels had figured out the spinning feeder, and cleaned the cob. Even after the kernels were gone, the squirrels continued to jump onto it, just to spin around. As soon as it stopped, the squirrel would hop off, climb back up the tree, and jump again. Marion was fascinated. She watched those squirrels for days, playing on the feeder. Marion had forgotten about the birds. Marion now loved the squirrels. The next time Jake called, he could hear the improvement in his mom’s voice, and he promised to make her more feeders. Although Jake was busy from his furniture shop, he always found time to design and build at least one new feeder per visit.
Over time, Jake found quite a challenge in designing a feeder that the squirrels would have trouble with. No matter how many traps, catches, or barriers he put in their way, Marion told him the squirrels mastered it within days. Unable to best a simple squirrel, Jake was frustrated. He decided that his next feeder would have to be truly puzzling. As he designed it, he realized that it would never fit into anything manageable. It had morphed into plans that would have the squirrels following a path around the yard, having to complete complex tasks before moving on.
It took Jake a long time to finish the puzzle. Assembling it would take a few days, so Jake made plans to close the shop over a long holiday weekend. His mom thought him crazy when he described the plan, but she was happy to hear that he was coming home soon. It had been awhile since his last visit and she could feel herself starting to retreat back into a depression.
As Jake started to install the pieces, he realized that it wouldn’t fit into the back yard. With so many trees, the squirrels would be able to jump down from an overhanging branch, bypassing chunks of the puzzle. Since the side yard lacked trees, he built it there. Marion would still be able to sit and watch the action from the wraparound porch. After he completed it, he showed Marion the secret to placing the prize. It was inside a locking, metal hamster cage that the squirrels couldn’t open or chew through. He had installed about ten feet of clear hamster cage tubing as the only entrance, and that started high atop a metal pole the squirrels couldn’t climb. To get there, they had puzzles to solve, sections of clothesline to cross, long jumps onto small platforms, and anything else he could think of to slow them down. Everything was atop those tall metal poles, and he hoped his design would not allow the squirrels to take short cuts. His only concessions to fairness were the teaser peanuts he left along the trail. He didn’t want to have spent all of this time and energy just to have the squirrels give up on the prize. After three hard days of work, his masterpiece was ready, and he asked Marion to place the food prize inside the hamster cage. Jake returned to his home and job. The visit and new feeder seemed to have lifted his mother’s spirits again.
Jake called a few days later to check on his mom and the squirrels. She was happy to hear from him so soon, and informed him that his puzzle was a success. Although the squirrels had figured out where to start, they had yet to successfully solve the first puzzle and win the teaser peanut and his design had prevented them from cheating thus far. Jake was happy he could finally call one of his squirrel puzzles a success. Marion called him the next week to keep him up to date. The squirrels had managed to solve two puzzles and claim their treats.
It took almost three weeks for the squirrels to navigate the entire puzzle. Marion was so happy when she went out one morning and saw two squirrels working on the last challenge. Jake had made that one the most complex. One squirrel had to jump onto a spring loaded hatch. Its weight would cause the hatch to open, dropping the squirrel onto a platform hanging from a pulley system. With the squirrel’s weight on that platform, a final metal gate would rise, unblocking the hamster tubes. The system was carefully balanced so that if the first squirrel dropped off the platform, the gate would close. This meant that one squirrel would have to wait on the platform, while a second squirrel would scamper through the tubing. Without this teamwork, the prize remained secure. Marion was very impressed when that first squirrel returned through the tubes carrying two peanuts and that it then shared with its helper. They had finally solved the puzzle. Marion called Jake to share the news.
Jake was pleased that it took this long for his obstacle course to be completed. Marion was happy also, and made a request for his next one. She asked that the hamster tubes be extended onto the porch, along with the hamster cage. That way, she would get a better view of the squirrels. He started planning the design right away.
Jake’s design wasn’t nearly as ambitious as his last one. He just changed two of the puzzles and extended the hamster tubing onto the porch. He would have liked to have built more, but this was taking up to much of his time. His business was picking up nicely, and he had met a beautiful woman whom he spent most of his free time with. Jake loved his mother dearly, but he needed to live his own life as well.
On his next visit to his mom’s, he brought his girlfriend Mya. They had become inseparable, and both were thinking to themselves that this relationship could become permanent. He had all ready met her family, and she wanted to meet his. The two women spent the day together, discussing whatever it is women talk about in that situation. Jake busied himself modifying the squirrel course. Although the squirrels had become very adept at navigating it, Jake and Marion had decided that having them visit her on the porch would be much better than trying to continuously outsmart them. He would still change out a puzzle sometimes, just to keep up the challenge.
That afternoon, Jake had finished the course. He had removed the section of hamster tube that had the gate built in. That way, if only one squirrel was brave enough to try, he wouldn’t need help making it to the porch. Jake thought that some of them might not be brave enough to try until one successfully made it. They departed with hugs and kisses, Marion happy for her son and his new friend.
Over the next few months, the squirrels grew comfortable enough with Marion to fetch the peanuts out of the hamster cage while she sat and watched. Some even lingered long enough, that Marion thought they were saying hello. Marion decided she wanted more of the cages, and even thought she might like one in the house. She called her son to ask him to bring more cages and tubes.
When Jake heard his mother’s plans, he did not like them one bit. Adding more cages on the porch would be ok. He could always make the tubing very long so that the squirrels were never loose near his mom. What bothered him was the cage she wanted placed inside the kitchen; in the house. His mom wanted to bring a wild squirrel into her home. He tried to convince her it was a bad idea but she insisted. She told him, that if he wouldn’t do it for her, she would try to do it herself. Jake knew that he could build it safer than she would, so he finally relented. He loved his mother and wanted to keep her both happy and out of harm’s way. After Marion extracted promises that he would do this for her, they said their goodbyes. Jake started looking online for problems she might have being that close to a wild squirrel. The biggest concern he had, besides one escaping, was flea control. He decided he would get some of the powder designed for killing fleas on dogs. He hoped that the powder might stick to the squirrel and help de-flea the others, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to get it on the squirrel to start with.
The solution he designed was both simple and elegant. He built a box from wood, which had a section of the hamster tubing going in one end, and out the other. It was long, skinny, and narrow, and not much bigger than the tubing attached to it at either end. The other four walls, he glued outdoor broom bristles to. He sighted down the inside of the box, and used scissors to trim the bristles. He wanted the squirrels to see through it and not think it was a solid barrier. The last step was to install the tubing to either end. He used pieces that had built in gates that could be closed while powdering the bristles. He didn’t want a squirrel to come through the tubing while his mom had the lid off.
On his next visit to Marion, Jake brought all of the promised cages and tubes. Mya, who loved Jake, thought his mom was a little kooky and excused herself from this visit, pleading work. Jake built a window box on the inside of the kitchen window. Since the window was going to be open all of the time, he built and installed a plywood replacement that had a hole just big enough for the hamster tubing to pass through. Guiding the tube attached to the cage through the hole, he set the cage down on the window box and secured it solidly. From there, he went outside and ran the tubing to the dusting box and then out into the yard. He showed his mom how to close the gates on the tubing, and then open up the lid on the box. He handed her the flea powder and told her to liberally sprinkle in on the bristles. Only after reattaching the lid, was she to open the gates up. He made sure she understood that she would have to check the box every few days to see if she needed to add flea powder to the bristles. He also told her to close the gates at night so that a snake didn’t wander into the house through the tubing.
It didn’t take him long to set up the other two cages that stopped on the porch. He had spent the little free time he had dealing with the inside cage problem, and didn’t make any new puzzles. These cages only had the tubing running out into the yard and he was completely finished before lunch. After adding the prize peanuts to the cages, they settled in the kitchen to eat sandwiches for lunch.
Jake was surprised to see a squirrel poke its head into the kitchen cage so quickly. Having learned from their previous experiences, the squirrels had trained themselves to relate the hamster tubes to a peanut prize and were used to travelling through them. Sniffing the air, it hesitantly headed for the peanut, snatched it quickly, and returned to the safety of the tube. Jake saw the white dust covering the animal, and was pleased. He now only hoped that the poison designed for dogs, wouldn’t hurt the squirrel. He mentioned to Marion that she should keep a close eye on them for a few days to make sure. Marion was so happy that the squirrel was brave enough to enter the house. She hoped the others would be so emboldened. After lunch, Jake loaded up his tools in preparation for the long drive home. Kissing his mother he departed, hoping today’s activities didn’t place her in danger.
Jake called her the next week to see how it was going. Marion told him it was wonderful, that the squirrels were becoming more comfortable being inside the house, and even hanging out with her in the kitchen. She had even got one to take a peanut from her fingers as she held it through the bars of the cage. She told him she was keeping the brushes powdered, and it didn’t seem to bother the squirrels at all. Jake relaxed at the lack of bad news.
One morning, Marion decided she needed to clean the inside cage. There were lots of empty peanut shells and other debris that the squirrels had drug into it. She went outside and closed one of the gates at the dusting box, to keep any squirrels from coming in while the cage was open. Unfortunately, Marion failed to notice that there was already a squirrel in the tube past the gate, and she had just closed off its escape root. Marion went back inside and opened up the cage to clean it out. While she had her hand in the cage, the squirrel, who had became accustomed to her presence, peeked its head out of the tube. The frightened Marion screamed and tried to backup up suddenly. Unable to close the cage door while retreating, Marion’s slippered feet lost traction, and she crumpled to the floor.
Marion awakened to a blinding pain. She was lying on the floor in the kitchen, and slowly remembered how she got there. Although her head throbbed, the real pain came from somewhere lower. As she tried to sit up, the pain intensified and she passed out. Some time later, Marion woke again. Remembering the pain, she didn’t try to move too quickly. She could slowly move her arms and flex her fingers, but any movement of her body or legs brought the stars back to her vision, and the blackness closer. She didn’t want to pass out again, so she lay still. From her position on the floor, Marion could see the open cage sitting at the window above her. She remembered the squirrel that had scared her, causing her to fall. She hoped it had left, until she remembered she had closed the gate in the hamster tube. She wondered where it was at, praying she hadn’t trapped it inside the house with her. Marion started sobbing quietly as the finality of her predicament dawned upon her. The jerking of her body as she cried sent fresh shooting pain down her nerves.
The squirrel was trapped inside the house with her. Since it couldn’t retreat out the tubing, it had eventually climbed out of the open cage. Marion had not left any food or peanuts out that the squirrel could eat. It went off in search of food. The squirrel, having grown accustomed to Marion, didn’t fear the house and brazenly searched it to no avail. It was going to starve if Marion couldn’t free it, and Marion couldn’t move an inch without the pain dragging her to unconsciousness. Marion hoped that Jake would call. If she failed to answer the phone, he might drive down to check on her. Jake was her only hope.
Jake was busy that week, never thinking to call his mom. Between his ever growing relationship with Mya, and the thriving furniture business, Jake didn’t have much time for anything else. While Marion lay in her own filth, broken and inching towards death, Jake was enjoying the success of his life.
Marion lay on her kitchen floor for four days and nights. For the last two, the hungry squirrel had eaten the only food he could find. Poor Marion. The blinding pain prevented her from defending herself when the squirrel first inched towards her unmoving legs. She had managed to keep it at bay until then just yelling at it, but its hunger overcame the fear. Unable to kick at it, Marion could do nothing but shut her eyes and wail as it tasted her exposed toes. The pain she felt from the gnawing was still less than the break in her hip when she tried to kick it away. Marion succumbed to a fresh bout of tears thinking, “Why didn’t I stick with the birds. I hate squirrels.”
Marion’s body was discovered almost a week later when the police were called by her concerned son. While waiting for the coroner, neither officer noticed the squirrel scamper out of the door they left open to air out the smell. The female officer finally looked up and saw it running for the trees. She turned to her partner and said, “I just love squirrels. They’re so cute.”
Her partner looked back at her and replied with a smile, “Hell, everybody loves squirrels.”
The End
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