By Wilson
Squirrels are like lawyers, rats and roaches. They’re determined, destructive and sneaky; they ransack and they pillage.
Squirrels eat innocent seedlings down to the quick, bury nuts (just where nuts in the city come from is beyond me) in dirt, and for sport like to decapitate flower buds. They take all joy out of life. Nothing scares them, they won’t go away.
In children’s books, these furry, bushy-tailed, four-footed pests (avec claws) are often described as bright-eyed. But the squirrels on my fire escape are beady-eyed. They even make eye contact. They’re psycho.
These squirrels have balls, regardless of gender. At the outdoor garden-cafe next door to my apartment, the waiter said that they jump up on the tables. A lady at the farmers’ market at the nearby Stuyvesant Church said that they hop into baby carriages.
They’re reckless and possessed. In broad daylight, I witnessed them destroy my neighbor’s orchids (phonetically spelled “orkis” at my corner deli). These savage beasts bit off just the blossoms (which are shaped like testicles and fallopian tubes), and left a carnage of denuded stalks to wilt and die. Those monsters weren’t even hungry. It was obscene.
Experts say that the humane way to get rid of squirrels is to sprinkle cayenne powder around whatever it is you’re trying to protect. I want to tell these experts that I’m ready for a flamethrower.
Cayenne doesn’t work, and just gets in your eyes. Mustard, chili pepper, ground hot red pepper flakes, hot soapy water, bleach, oil and/or used/urine-soaked cat litter is a waste of time and money. Banging pots and pans, erecting tall barriers, using protective netting and bouncing (“bonk!”) empty tuna fish cans directly off their heads (“duh?”) doesn’t work either. Shouting or hissing like an enemy snake just makes your neighbors think you’ve got Tourette’s.
My squirrels love to challenge and to taunt, to torture and humiliate. One afternoon (there’s a direct view of one of the fire-escape windows from my bathroom) I felt like George Costanza in the “Seinfeld” episode, when he ran out of Jerry’s bathroom and tripped on the floor with his pants down. I had left the bathroom door open and was staring out the window when I noticed two squirrels were wilding in my cherry tomatoes.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m an animal lover. I hate people; people suck. If I could have any job in the world it would be to work at the zoo and arrest anyone who tapped on the glass and/or harassed the animals in any way, shape or form. I grew up with cats, dogs, hamsters, rabbits, fish, turtles and parakeets, and for two years I lived across from a farm that had lots of animals. I once found an injured mourning dove, and nursed it back to health. His name was Coo, Call of the Wild.
I just want the squirrels to go away. Not in my backyard (NIMBY) — literally. Plus I have cats. The last thing I need is for rabid, parasite-infested squirrels to come in contact with my girls, or for these pests to try to steal their catfood.
I used to be horrified by a story a friend once told me (when she was little she chased a squirrel and caught it by the tail and the tail came off in her hand). Nowadays, I’m ashamed to admit I quite enjoy that image. And there’s this incredible Ira Glass “This American Life” segment on Public Radio about a maniacal squirrel that catches on fire (which they always air during fundraising, it’s that great).
Last summer, when I was at the supermarket and this guy in front of me was getting a giant bag of birdseed, I commented that I used to get the small bag (for mourning doves and assorted cute/little birds — pigeons prohibited) but had to stop due to evil and thieving squirrels. Just my luck, this nut insisted that squirrels were hungry, “absolutely starving,” and forced me to take $10 towards buying them some food. In deference, I ended up throwing some rotten cabbage out onto the roof next door, even through the squirrels around here are big and fat. I mean, hello, they live at a restaurant.
I used to think I had an advantage being on the top floor — I could torture them from above. Unfortunately, these greedy party-crashers learned that scurrying down the fire-escape steps and getting doused with various liquids could easily be avoided by running up the stairs. But after I raced up to the roof and got them with water a couple of times, the notoriously rowdy members of the Sciuridae family (gang) came up with even more escape routes, new and improved battle plans and modus operandi.
The devious squirrel doesn’t hibernate, and I’m positive they could survive a nuclear meltdown and/or any number of Bush-inspired environmental disasters. They are relentless.
And they win. I’m a paranoid wreck, sick and tired of looking out windows, flinching and seeing things that aren’t there. I’m starting to feel like “Fat Bastard” in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” whenever I see them — “I’ma gonna eat ya!” They killed my morning glories, a gardenia, a jumbo hibiscus and miniature rose. They’ve turned my life upside down. But I refuse to surrender completely.
This year, I ordered some new plants (from a catalogue company that apparently doesn’t utilize market research, i.e., my zip code is not conducive to huge trees, acres of grass or fields of corn, which is mostly what they sell). I rigged up special indoor planters on my sixth-floor, south-facing windows. I have screens. Everything’s growing fine. I’m going to have my garden, and eat it too. Fat bastards.
In Tompkins Sq. Park, there are some new squirrel hutches designed by Jim “Mosaic Man” Power — the guy who covers East Village lamppoles with broken glass and plates — and paid for, by the way, by Bernhard Goetz, the subway vigilante. I wish the little varmints would just stay in their houses.
Note to Ripley’s: no squirrels were seen or attacked during the writing of this column.
