Motherf**king Squirrels

So! In recapping my weekend, on Friday my car dropped dead and on Saturday I was under surveillance by a guy standing on the struts of a helicopter. I was hoping the weekend would get a little less ........ strange.

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to do some garden stuff, and I needed to get in the shed. I reached for the shed padlock key, which is in a secret undisclosed outdoor location, and ...... the shed key was gone.

Now, the reason the shed key was kept outdoors was because I used to share the shed with another tenant. Seeing as how he moved out some time ago, and nobody else wanted the shed space, I could have taken the key inside, but somehow I just never got around to it. And now the key was gone.

The thing is, my craft show tables are in that shed, and I was supposed to do a show this weekend (oops! Make that next weekend - see below), so I really needed to get into that shed, sooner rather than later. I took a look at the hasp on the door, thinking maybe I could just unscrew it off the door, and .... not. Not enough of the screws were accessible. I decided I would wait until Tuesday, and ask the opinion of the guys at work. Crowbar, maybe? Boltcutters? I figured if worse came to worst, I could always just call a locksmith. Yeah. More money down the freakin' drain.

I finally decided to wait a few hours, until the guys who live downstairs got good and drunk (safe bet; they do this every single day), and ask for their help. Because drunk guys are always more cooperative than sober ones.

So about eight o'clock Sunday night (yes, they are drunk by eight. and passed out cold by ten thirty), I went downstairs, explained my problem, and J., one of the downstairs guys, told me to get a hammer and a screwdriver and meet him at the shed. And he worked the screwdriver under the hasp, gave it a good hard pop with the hammer, and that hasp flew off that shed door. The entire operation took all of twenty seconds. Thanks, J.!

Of course, then there was a whole other saga of finding a new hasp and a padlock that would fit through the hasp opening and blahblahblah .......... but! Back to my point!

I am fairly certain that the motherf**king squirrels made off with that shed key. I think they visited the secret undisclosed shed key location, knocked the key off its perch and onto the ground, and either carted the key off themselves or left that job to the crows. (Look! Something shiny!) Because the squirrels in my neighborhood are assholes.

I long ago gave up birdfeeding, because the goddam squirrels were able to break the code of any "squirrel-proof" feeder I put up. Now I just feed the finches (squirrels don't like finch seed) and the hummingbirds (ditto, hummingbird juice).

I had a set of deer antlers mounted on my back porch, and a while ago I noted the the antlers were often .... askew. I thought maybe the wind was blowing them around, and I'd reach up, adjust them, and go on my merry way. But the other night I was doing dishes, and I looked out the window, and there was a squirrel perched on the antlers, chewing away. I went out, shooed the squirrel away, and discovered that the squirrels had been chewing chunks out of the antlers. Yep, chewing right into solid bone.

WTF? Why? It's not like it's the dead of winter here and they're starving to death. They've never bothered the antlers before. What up?

Motherf**king squirrels.

Oh, and it is of course possible that I forgot to replace the shed key the last time I used it, and it got left in my jeans pocket, and made a trip to the laundromat and ended up in the bottom of the washing machine. But I'm sticking this one on the squirrels. Because they're birdseed-eating, antler-chewing assholes.