The Taunting Squirrel

I wanted to take vengeance into my own hands.

I pounded viciously on my dining room window. "I'll get you back!" I promised the squirrel perched atop my backyard fence post.

No doubt he'd struck the same impertinent pose atop my living room couch the previous morning, after strewing the remnants of his garbage-bag feast all over the pillows.

The scent of discarded leftovers must have beckoned him from the chilly outdoors and impelled him through a crevice between my open dining room window and its closed inner storm pane. For immediately after I'd left for work, he'd apparently squeezed through the hole, vaulted onto the floor, and dug gleefully into the kitchen trash waiting to be taken out.

But at such a festive moment, no simple kitchen-floor breakfast had sufficed. So the squirrel had carried his crumbs to the dining room table, where he'd dined elegantly beneath my centerpiece of fresh flowers. Their beauty and fragrance must have lured him too near, however, for the vase had toppled over and, I like to imagine, struck him squarely on the head.

The accident seemed to have set off a frantic search for the portal back to his habitat. And in his fear of never finding an exit, my intruder's digestive—and excretory—systems had started churning; he'd left droppings along the bedroom baseboards, then pounced onto my desk and deposited a pellet directly between my computer's G and H keys. He must have made his final deposit—on the bedroom windowsill—while looking longingly through prison-bar windowpanes at his familiar fence post perch.

I wasn't sure if the squirrel had yet regained that perch when I flicked on the lights that evening and saw on the table a stray cinnamon bun chunk. Only a large rodent could have dragged it there. The same rodent I'd caught clawing at my window only days before the break in.

A frantic call to wildlife control alerted me to the squirrel's possible hiding spots in my home. And hysterical calls to family, friends, and my landlord soon brought assistance in digging through crammed closets and poking into dark corners.

After a futile search, the recovery process began. I bathed everything, even my leather couch, in Formula 409 cleaner. My father donned rubber gloves and gathered the droppings. A friend stripped my bed and stuffed the sheets into a hot-water, extra-strength wash cycle. And, finally, we moved the furniture to the center of each room and thoroughly scrubbed the floors.

It was a whole-house spring cleaning on a Friday at midnight.

Gone were the dinner plans with my boyfriend. And gone was the money for an overnight hotel stay while I waited to see if strategically placed crackers would lure the squirrel out of any overlooked hiding place.

So to avenge all that was gone, I banged on the window the following morning when I returned to my undisturbed home and glimpsed the cheeky intruder dancing merrily along the backyard tree branches. I berated him with a yell when, the next day, I caught him clinging to my kitchen window screen. And then, one late afternoon the following week, I logged on to a menacing website to browse through high-powered BB guns.

"I can't have him chewing through my screens and coming in again," I explained to my landlord, who stopped by a few weeks later with the greeting "Squirrel patrol!" "Don't shoot him," he scolded. "Make friends with him." In my landlord's rebuke, I heard echoes of my father's chiding after every childhood fight between my siblings and me. He'd hold us apart and quote his favorite King James Bible verse: "`Vengeance is mine; I will repay,' saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19).

But I've usually wanted to mete out justice personally, both to punish offenders and to teach them not to attack me again. I've rarely trusted God's vengeance to be better or faster than my imagined repayments. And, as expected, God still hasn't rained down fire or flood—or at least a shortage of fattening acorns—on that fence-hopping
squirrel.

But I'm waiting. And, in the last month, I've even feebly attempted squirrel friendship by refraining from taunts and yells. Yet despite my gestures of peace — and a patch on the squirrel's original entry point, I can't completely guard myself against another attack. Not unless I resort to murderous vengeance. And that, I'm leaving to the Lord.

In the meantime, I'll just tap on the window.


~~Andrea Bianchi

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Varments or people, a little frustration and lack of patience can quickly make the best of us long for a little payback. Before something or someone gets the "best" of you... Bring out the Best in yourself with a big dose of patience (prayer helps) and a
little forgiveness. I promise you'll feel better (and you won't have the guilt that revenge brings) about yourself. Inspiring the best in you always,
Tim