Under Attack and Fighting Back

I'm under attack. As of today, I refuse to sit back and take it like a chump.

This has been going on for months. Each time I think things have changed and I'm finally going to get a break, there's another attack. It started way back in the fall, right around Halloween, and it hasn't let up since.

The thing is, this attack is on the home front, and until now I've felt there's very little I can do about it. But I've already lost someone dear to me because of this, and Roommate and I have taken all we can handle. (Yes, this is affecting her, too.)

I told my parents what's been going on, and Stepmom actually suggested getting a gun.* I'm not quite prepared to do that (nor do I think my neighbors would appreciate my having one, considering the number of children in our neighborhood), but I'm ready to do something.

I've been researching possible courses of action, and I think I'm going to simultaneously launch a multi-defense/multi-offense strategy immediately upon arriving home this afternoon. But first, I'll have to make a stop by the hardware store. If they don't have all the supplies I need, I might have to make more than one.

Rest assured that I will arrive at Casa de Belle with both blockades and ammunition. If those little fuckers want war, they're going to get it.

The first, and arguably the worst, attack was in October. I carved the cutest little face on a pumpkin I'd actually gone out into a field to select. Pallentino the Pumpkin was born. I set him outside, proud of my artistic accomplishment. But Pallentino was doomed, it seems, from the start.

The next day, I noticed small chunks of orange flesh lying on the ground near Pallentino. Upon closer inspection, I saw that his face had been nibbled in several places. There was only one explanation. Fucking squirrels. By the end of the week, there was nothing but a wicked, gaping hole where Pallentino's cute little smirking face had once shined like a beacon. May he rest in peace.

Roommate's beautiful pansies were under siege all winter.

Last night, the two of us potted a ton of annuals, lots of herbs, and some vegetables for our summer salads. I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and let those nasty little rodents with bushy freakin' tails root up these plants as well.

Wish me luck. I'll let you know how it all goes.

"A varmint will never quit - ever. They're like the Viet Cong - Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that's all she wrote." --Carl Spackler, Caddyshack


* Just a BB gun, really, but what would've been the fun in revealing that?