Robin wrote a post today about trying to not run over a squirrel. And while I found her benevolence touching, it reminded me of how much I really hate squirrels.

Last year we had a garden full of tomato plants. For those of you that know me, I am obsessed with tomato sauce and all manner of pasta. Derek, not so much. But ever since we started making fresh pasta he has come over to the dark side. Well, we started to have a little problem with half-eaten tomato plants on the vine. There was a big hole in our miniscule raised beds and we were sure that a mole or some other evil rodent was waiting until the tomatoes were ripe and then having at it. Until the day I got the phone call.

I was in the library, sick as a dog, studying for the bar. All the sudden my phone vibrates. The caller ID flashes that it is Derek from home. I'm thinking WTH? I'm studying and I want to be left alone. I jogged out into the stairwell and answered the phone.

DT: You are not going to believe what just happened.
KH: What just happened?
DT: I was getting out of the shower, and you know how I like to look out the window and survey all my land?
KH: (thinking--"All 1/5 of an acre in the dead center of suburbia????????) Yeah?
DT: Guess what I saw?
KH: (thinking--"How the hell does this man think I am ever going to get anything done if we continue to play 20 questions?????") What?
DT: I saw a squirrel sitting on YOUR chair in the back yard, eating a ripe red tomato he was holding in his little hands.
KH: SOB!!!!!!! What did you do?
DT: I got out the BB gun and shot him off the chair.
KH: Shut UP!!!!!!!
DT: I did.
KH: From where?
DT: The upstairs window.
KH: (suddenly suspicious) What were you wearing?
DT: (silence)
KH: Did you kill him?
DT: Nah.
KH: YOU ROCK BABE! I love you! But what if the neighbors saw a gun coming out the second story window? I'm pretty sure you can't shoot at squirrels in broad daylight. Or ever, for that matter.
DT: I thought you were worried about your tomatoes.
KH: (silence and pregnant pause). You're right. Good job.

It was a pretty eventful summer. I was never as good a shot (my old range instructor would be mortified, but I maintain it's harder to shoot a bb gun than a sig). We only shook up a couple of squirrels. Derek said it was worth it to knock them off their feet so they would go home and tell their family members to avoid that Colonial halfway down the block.

I don't think so.

We'll have to see what happens this year.