Tag Archives: Squirrels

Art on the installment plan

She can’t open the window more than a few centimeters, for if she does, the squirrel that prowls the fire escape will collapse its skull, creep into her kitchen, and steal one of her bananas. She doesn’t know for a fact that the felonious squirrel likes bananas, but she never would have guessed that it liked tomatoes either, and over the summer it stole several of them right out of the fruit bowl.

Why can’t she give this squirrel a banana? She has a whole bunch of them. Who is she, Donald Trump? Would she also withhold milk from a crying baby?


 The Japanese shoguns had the unusual distinction of being perhaps the only major rulers ever to eradicate firearms. In 1587, the shogun declared that all non-samurai were required to hand over weapons—both guns and swords—to the government, which had announced it was going to use the metal in the construction of an enormous statue of Buddha. (Facts & Details)

She wonders if disarmament would work in the United States if artists promised a statue of Jesus to the owners of assault rifles.


Facebook: where people go to announce the death of their cats.


It’s been weeks since she effectively made her way out of bed. Yesterday he bellyflopped onto the mattress beside her and then diverted her with his repertoire of comical swimming strokes, as if the bed were a pool or an ocean and not a queen-sized black hole of ruminating despair. “I’m sorry,” he said, getting to his feet after he’d shown her his butterfly. “I’m being codependent.”


They bought a print from an artist down the street. The artist told them that a middle-school janitor had bought the original painting. The man had poked his head into the artist’s studio one day to inquire about the price of the oil portrait in the window. “Three thousand dollars,” the artist told him. “Damn,” said the janitor, and departed. Thirty minutes later he was back. “I’ll give you two hundred dollars for it every month for the next fifteen months,” he said. The artist agreed. Fifteen months later, the janitor took the portrait home. He occasionally texts the artist a photograph of himself hanging out at home with his arm around the painting.

Everyone is depressed, but not everyone has squirrel rabies

A couple days ago M and I were walking through Riverside Park at sunset trying to work up an appetite for dinner because not an hour beforehand we’d eaten Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for lunch, as grownups do. Pretty soon we discovered a city squirrel on our heels. Feeling proud of ourselves for attracting [I have rabies] such an exotic creature, we began coaxing it closer to us with terms of endearment and fake food. The squirrel [Rabies is what I have] inched close enough to M’s outstretched, empty hand [Rabies what] to realize he was being faked out, then he scampered away. “Damn,” said M. “Do you [Rabid rabid raps a lot] have any food in your purse?”

“Yeah right,” I said, insulted that M would assume I’m some kind of snack hoarder [It’s time to bite everything]. I reached into my bag to indicate that it was empty save for my wallet and great literature, and like some kind of witch I pulled out a packet of Chick Fil A granola [Heads off chickens] I’d been hoarding for a week. Never has a more ideal squirrel food [Blood] materialized [Blood] out of nowhere [Blood]. And so began our quest to feed a squirrel [I’ll come in the dead of night like a vampire bat] from our hands.

You know how Emerson said if the stars only appeared one night every thousand years or whatever [I’ll suck the blood from the stars], everyone would freak out because they’re so beautiful? Well city squirrels are actually really cute. Their adorable little faces [Eat the eyeballs first]. Their soft fur for petting [Clot with pink saliva]. Their teenie tiny paws that press down on your hand while the teeth crunch granola [Foam at the mouth]. I love them so much.

After thirty minutes of vigorous effort, I earned the trust of an adolescent squirrel in a tree. He followed the trail of Chick Fil A cereal directly into my palm–who wouldn’t?–and began [I’ll eat you then you can eat me and we can all be the same] chewing ecstatically. It was perhaps the best moment of my life. And then a dog [Sink my teeth into your skin] walked by. The squirrel dropped the granola in its mouth and clamped down on my finger instead. The Disney cartoon I’d been inhabiting [I’m not naturally aggressive I just want to eat everybody] suddenly turned into a remake of Cujo and I was shaking a filthy, rabid rodent off my hand before it could inflict me with its poison.

M and I both felt a little sheepish afterward. M lit a cigarette. We texted my mom. Had I gotten the tetanus shot she’d told me to get when my nephew was born? No. Karma. We left the park in a hurry. Googled “squirrel rabies.” So far I think I’m okay [Cow blood tastes the best], but I’m monitoring my emotional responses more ardently than usual. Now if I feel especially misanthropic or ferocious, I have to wonder.

The most telling part about this story [Last night I killed four subway rats with my bare hands] is that the night after the squirrel attacked my finger, I dreamed about an animal biting the same digit. Except in the dream incident, my subconscious saw fit to transform the squirrel into a bald eagle.