I Suppose You Know This Means War

You already know that I'm not the best little flower gardener on the block. (Fortunately for me, there's only one house in my neighborhood that even cares about their lawn; mostly, I'm surrounded by people too cash-strapped or too weird to care about horticulture.) I have somehow, against all odds, managed to scrape together a couple little pots of pretty flowers that seem to be holding up alright. My particular delight is a long box of pansies that I re-potted. They're so sunny. However, they're all just sitting on the back steps right now, since we've been put off by the nice man who was going to have our patio built by Memorial Day... but now might have it done for the Fourth.

Neither here nor there. My flowers will wait until the patio's built. Or so I thought.

A couple of weeks ago, I come out back to find two of my pots of flowers dug up. Pansies tossed out, dirt everywhere, a total mess. I am, understandably, furious. It was the two pots that were looking the best - namely the pretty pansy box. My first thought is the Destroyifying Duo of Max and Lilly... but they weren't even in the backyard. Plus, this is precision work. I think my pups have paws too big to get in there. Not all the flowers were dug, only bits and chunks... Lilly's more of a smash-and-grab kind of girl. It was weird. It was like tiny little diggers had gotten in there with minuscule pick axes and a passionate hatred for pansies.

I re-potted them, sick at the lack of roots on some, and went on with my life. A few days later, I mentioned it to some church ladies. "Squirrels," they knowingly pronounced. "They do it all the time."

Of course. Our backyard is pockmarked with squirrel diggings. Apparently our yard is to squirrels what deserted islands are to pirates: perfect grounds for buried treasure. X marks the spot all across our accursed lawn. But why my potted plants? They've got plenty of turf. The squirrels have to get all up in my pots, when they could just lazily scratch out a new chunk of lawn almost anywhere.

And then I realized: this wasn't about utility. This was about retaliation.

My aforementioned pups are not just Grade A Destroyifiers, they're also well-known squirrel tormentors. They will seriously wait under a tree for hours, just hoping a squirrel might think about falling. Max once pounced one out of the lilac bush and gave it a good shake before Chris caught him, but I'm not sure that squirrel made it for long after. I bet it made it back to its buddies. His dying words were something like, "Find what matters to the beasts who live in that place, and make them pay." Stupid squirrels can't figure out how to get back at the dogs, so they've gotten to the ones the dogs love: me. And after all the time I've spent hunched over those flowers, they must have thought they counted.

And damn them, they were right.

I have never liked squirrels before this. They are merely dirty sewer rats with bushier tails. Previous to this, I never really wanted them dead - I just didn't want them around. Now that's all changed. Since the previous digging-up, my pansies have been upended three more times. So, that's it. I will unleash my dogs into the backyard all they want, and will be especially likely to do so when I see a squirrel blithely digging around in my lawn. I will neither slow nor swerve when I see a squirrel in line with my car's wheels. And really, I don't have any more arsenal than that. But it's a start.

You might have won this battle, squirrels, but you haven't won the war. I'll get you yet, hairy pests.