The Big Daddy is in full squirrel mode, setting the trap every morning before he goes to work. He just loves him some squirrel in a cage to transport to the Beverly Hills part of town where they can eat someone else’s tomatoes. The other day he came home to a trap with no bait and no squirrel. Sonafabitch, he says, how did they get in there to eat my food and not get trapped? I do not know. Was it like this all day? I do not know. Weren’t you paying attention to it? No, I wasn’t. Well, ya gotta keep an eye on this thing. No, I don’t.
We were having this conversation in the driveway with The Big Daddy pacing around in his biking spandex and clickety clacking in his biking tap shoes, and then a squirrel, as if to mock him, runs right in front of us. Ya better run ya bastard, cuz I’m coming to get ya, he shouts. And when it ran up a tree and turned around, he yelled after it, “Oh, you’re gonna look at me, huh? Go ahead and it’ll be the last day ya ever look at me.”
A cute, young couple out for a nice, evening walk and pushing a stroller with a cute, little baby inside slowed down to hear what was going on. I hate these goddamn squirrels, he tells them and they nod and smile like o.k., buddy, why don’t you go in the house now and take your meds. I wanted to tell them that it wasn’t always like this, that at one time we were just like them pushing our babies and being normal. I don’t know when the train jumped the track and our new normal was standing in the front yard bullying squirrels, but I knew it was pointless to explain because even I didn’t believe me.
