Working out with Rodents

Several years ago I wrote a post called “Douche and Squirrel”, a sad tale about my attempt to kill a birdseed robbing bushy-tailed rodent that just would not vacate even with multiple BB shots in its hide. After that, guilt forced me to give up my murderous run-ins with members of the of tree-dwelling-rodent-thief community.

For the past few years I ignored them as they deprived us of summers filled with ample avocados to eat and share. Squirrels would eat them up when they were the size of a grape, and the rest of our hot season was filled with the absence of homemade guacamole. Live and let live was my motto. I always felt bad that I had made a squirrel suffer.

This year however, the little rat-bastards somehow missed their chance, and we have had a bumper crop of very sweet avocados from our two trees, but now we are in competition to get to the ripe avocados before the squirrels do.

For whatever reason, our invaders do not want to eat the avocados in the tree where it’s safer to do so. They prefer to eat them on the ground served on a nice platter of  freshly mowed St. Augustine.  So what they do is they will nibble the stem, and let gravity take over so the green fruit drops to the ground with a very audible THUD!

My perch on the couch is adjacent to our front door, and even though we have sound-blocking impact windows and doors, my ears have been trained to respond in a Pavlovian way to the THUD. With every THUD, I drop my book or my iPad, jump up off the couch and fly outdoors so I can scoop up the avocado before the squirrel sinks its unhygienic choppers into it.

I have to admit that these squirrels are great motivators for my daily exercise. Nothing tends to get me off the couch once I’m home from work. Other Bill will suggest activities:

“Wanna go to a movie?” He’ll ask.

“Nah.”

“Museum? Zoo? Beach?”

“Nah, it’s too hot.” (Yes, I realize movie theaters and museums are air conditioned, but the heat excuse seems to work as well as any.)

But it’s never too hot to run outside and meet up with a competitive rodent.

Take yesterday, for example.

I heard the THUD, inserted the bookmark, closed the book, scooted my feet into my flip-flops and went out the door. On the trunk of the yellow pod tree, nose pointing toward the ground was a plump grey squirrel, right there at eye level. On the ground at the base of the tree was a perfectly oval, unblemished avocado. The squirrel looked at me with his beady little rat-eyes and then at the avocado. Like he had a chance. Then I clapped my hands, and he scampered up to the crotch of the tree and started angrily barking at me.

I picked up the avocado, examined it and imagined it in a nice cool summer salad. I held up the prize toward the angry, screaming rodent. “Not this time, you rabid monster!” I scolded back, and returned back inside to my book. And the cushy indentation I have made into the couch.

I got through a half a page of my book, and there it was again: THUD!

Back up, shoes on, and a race to the door. This time the intruder was bolting down the avocado tree, and I ran around the little peninsula in the yard, clapping my hands as if I were happy and I knew it, and once again I beat the squirrel to the green bounty.

On a recent Saturday, this happened sixteen times in less than an hour. It was starting to wear me out.

I think this squirrel has a career in fitness instruction. Maybe soon I’ll see an infomercial on TV:

          Do you have trouble motivating yourself to go to the gym? Do you lack the willpower to pick your lazy sexagenarian ass off the couch and get on a treadmill? Hi, I’m Rocky, and welcome to Body by Squirrel.”

Hey, it beats being shot at while stealing birdseed.