Dear Gaggle of Squirrels Living In Our English Walnut Tree,

I am a busy, temperamental woman. There is no June-Cleaver-string-of-pearls-chirpy-bluebird bullshit in this house. I work my rather large, often unshowered, ASS off taking care of my three giant squirrels (all of whom have their own nuts). The baby squirrel thinks I am his personal chew toy. The middle squirrel is wildly creative and toils away thinking up clever new ways to shred himself and give me a stroke. The eldest squirrel is smarter than I am. (Today during lunch, he lulled me into a false sense of security. He successfully ate two cups of strawberry applesauce ‘like a big boy’, which is to say he used a spoon and got 90% of said sauce into his pie-hole. I gave him a third, at his request, and went to check my e-mail. Ahhhhhh, stupid girl. When I returned, I found the third cup empty, its contents now atop his giant head. His matted, shiny hair was shellacked into a smooth helmet, making him look like GI Liam.)

THEREFORE, I do not need your silly asses making any extra work for me! I do not find it cute or amusing that over the long winter you have forgotten where you hid your nuts and search for them EVERY FUCKING DAY in all twenty of my potted porch plants like amnesiacs on a scavenger hunt. Every day, I sweep the dirt from the porches and every day, you dig for the magic, invisible nuts, leaving drifts of potting soil in your wake.

Look. I admit that you’re kind of cute in a bushy rat way. And, I sympathize with the fact that you run your operation with a brain the size of a cornflake. However. I am an inherently explosive individual with few outlets for this personality flaw. You, my friends, are my outlet, so consider yourselves warned. Pass the word. Put a post-it by the knothole on the tree or call a squirrel town meeting. Let the whole gang know that there is a serious amount of crazy headed your way.

So help me, I will tie raw shrimp to your ludicrous, fluffy tails and sic my unfed-for-a-week cats on you. I will slow cook you in barbeque sauce and serve you up as an appetizer at our next party. I will hide penny-sized land mines in your favorite pots and explode you into squirrel confetti.

Stay. out. of. the. pots.

Suck it,

Jill