Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Freeloading squirrels
12:06 PM | 
Posted by
Bruny Hudson |
By Hobo Hudson
I was sitting on the sun deck this morning watching Dad feed the squirrels and noticed something odd. Charlene’s clan from the old oak tree would come up onto the sun deck, run over to the screen door of the porch and perform some antics to entertain my cat employees. As soon as the entertainer squirrels took a break, Dad would throw each of them a small peanut, and they would scamper off to the old oak tree to eat their pickings and then bury the shells.
The squirrels from across the street, however, would simply walk under the gate into my backyard and onto my sun deck and sit at its very edge, and Dad would select the biggest and best peanuts to throw them. After catching the peanuts, the squirrels would jump onto the top rail of the sun deck, crouch down or stretch out to munch on the peanuts and then throw the shells onto the sun deck for Dad to clean up.
I asked Dad why he gave the squirrels who merely came for a feast and didn’t do any work the best peanuts, and Dad replied that he was trying to teach them to work. That didn’t seem right to me. I growled at Dad to start giving them the smallest peanuts and to give Charlene’s clan the biggest and best peanuts.
Then, I trotted over to the gate, stopping the freeloaders from leaving and explaining my new food supply system: While I wouldn’t allow them to starve, they wouldn’t be eating so high on the hog without working for their food.
Oh, they did a lot of squealing about that. They said they had a constitutional right to food without having to work. I just grinned and agreed but pointed out that the constitution didn’t say they had a right to the same food as the squirrels that are willing to work. I also told them I might cut out the peanut provision entirely and just let them eat corn and any acorns they can find on their own.
We’ll just have to wait and see if this tough love approach works. If not, my peanut bill is going way down real fast.
Dad is wondering if this same approach would work with the “Occupy Tampa” bunch. They just lie around a public park waiting for good-hearted citizens to bring them food to eat and don’t even bother to put their trash in the receptacles while city employees have to come to clean up.
Labels:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Books
About Hobo
0 comments:
Post a Comment