…suburban vermin

We have vermin! Encouraging vermin through careless habits is greatly frowned upon in our neck of the woods—that we may actually shelter them in our abode is near profanation, and I risk censure by the neighborhood association if they find out!

The HOA’s (Hallowed Office of Analogousness[1]) current President and protector of decelerating house values will be appalled, but pretending that the problem doesn’t exist doesn’t work either.

Dear Diary,
I think that we’ve moved into a suburban wildlife habitat, and I don’t mean just teenagers. The other day, as I loaded the car for the errand excursion, I glimpsed a little red fox as it pattered across the front yard, up to our garage door and peeped in. The fox was oblivious to me, he was only after the cat food.

So, I admit it! We’re infested with an insidious gremlin whose most repulsive habits are tearing holes in the garbage and defecating in the cat litter! This animal sheds, leaving shoes dangling askew, shirts thrown over doors, a reflector running vest on the saw table, and socks, gloves and hats everywhere else. He stacks the workbench so high that it’s virtually unworkable. The infestation is obvious in the scattered bikes, slung helmets, and unpacked storage bins. The mutt hides the bike pump and drop-kicks all the outdoor sports gear.

Dear Diary,
As a country-raised kid, I spotted cows in the corn, hit deer in the road, and even spied moose in the meadows that occasionally mowed down motorists, but I’ve never seen a fox. T.

The vermin family moves in as does the influx of garden tools, gloves, shovels, trowels, and bulb planters from the garden shed.  The pestilance trashes the potting corner, digging in the dirt, scattering the bulbs that are in various stages of preservation, slacks his thirst in the watering cans, and sucks the life from dormant plants. 

I'm willing to bet that this is the same evil gremlin that loses the tools, jumbles the drawers, mixes the recycle-ables, drips oil on the concrete and this week has scattered oatmeal on the garage floor? (Don’t ask.)

To me:
If the neighbors had noticed, a meeting of the HOA, would be called and plans would have been made for the immediate extermination of that fox, to protect the domesticated felines and rodent-sized poochies.

They breed… in thirty-weight oil maybe? I just know that when one gremlin moves in, others follow. Soon, it looks like you have housed a whole herd. 


[1]People who wish they owned your lot so they could manage it better.