The neighborhood squirrels had something juicy to gossip about this weekend. I invite you to consider how it went–I imagine it looked something like this:

Bushy-Tailed Theater Presents:

One Nut Too Many

Squirrel One: “Chitter chitter, chitter chit…(hang on, translation matrix is running slowly)…there…she’s at it again. First, she brought the plastic bags filled with yummy goodness to her giant not-a-tree house and then she moves it all back to the smaller not-a-tree house.”

Squirrel Two: “It’s about damned time. I can’t understand why she stored the food in a place so close to where she sleeps! Doesn’t she know that’s the first place other humans will look for food?”

The squirrels watch for a few minutes as the human wheels more and more bags filled with yummy goodness to the smaller not-a-tree house to feed it to the white beast living there.* They watch as she attempts a game of Tetris—trying manically to shove all of the stuff into a place too small to fit it.

Squirrel One: “What is she doing with it now?”

Squirrel Two: “Putting it in the white beast that hums in the smaller not-a-tree house…hmmm, she is terrible at packing nuts. She is doing the human equivalent of a bushy-tailed dance of frustration…what do you suppose ‘sonofabeak’ means anyway? Humans don’t have beaks!”

Squirrel One: “Who knows with humans? She’s obviously got too many nuts. She should get rid of a few.”

Squirrel Two: “Well, you can forget about getting any of the sweet snow. The human boy is eating it straight out of the carton for dinner. We’ll be lucky to get to lick the leftovers when the trash goes out six suns from now.”

Squirrel One: “He can have it.  I tried the yellow kind once and it was terrible.”

 

What the squirrels do not realize is that the human—me—is very shortly going to realize that the not-humming-any-more white beast in the house—the refrigerator—is not actually broken. But I won’t find this out until the next morning. Someone who shall not be named unplugged it in a genius work-around of the “Do not turn the dial in the fridge to off!” rule.

For those keeping count, the game stands:

Autistic Child – one. Clueless Parent – zero.

 

The squirrels do not know what to make of the human’s reversal of the previous night’s move.

Squirrel One: “Chitter, chitter…screw it…Hey, Frank get over here. She’s back.”

Squirrel Two: “What? I was watching the boy human create a nest. He is really marvelous with his use of scissors on various media. I wish I had opposable thumbs.”

Squirrel One: “Never mind that, I’ve seen that episode before. It ends with the mother human yelling at the boy human, making him clean it up…and then the boy dumps it all out again when her back is turned. No, you want to watch and see what she’s doing now.”

Squirrel Two: “What…hey!…didn’t she just move all that stuff yester-sundown? Why would she move it all back to where she stored it in the first place? Was the smaller not-a-tree house invaded?”

Squirrel One: “Nah. At least, not on my watch. She just wanted to repack it all, I guess. She gave the white, humming beast in the big not-a-tree house a bath. She was very tender and loving toward it. Though, she didn’t lick it or anything. She cut the monster into pieces and washed each section in the small silver lake in the food room.”

Squirrel Two: “Was it some kind of human magic? Was she trying to prevent a curse?”

Squirrel One: “No…but maybe she was trying to inflict one. I heard a lot of cursing going on.”

Squirrel Two: “Who was she trying to hex?”

Squirrel One: “The boy human, I think. She chittered at him on and off all sun-time. Though, I don’t think they speak the same language. He kept indicating he wanted something to eat and she just kept making him help bathe the giant humming beast that’s hogging all the food. She’s only encouraging him to try and kill it again later, from what I can tell.”

Squirrel Two: “Humans are weird.”

Squirrel One: “Like I said, there’s one nut too many in that place.”

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Asterisk Bedazzled Squirrely Footnote:

*I don’t care how labored the effort is, I find squirrel speak hilariously funny. Be grateful I limited it to household descriptions.

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Please admire my newly-cleaned beast…er…refrigerator, someone should considering how many hours went into its production: