Friday Funny- Flying Chipmunks and Red Tulips

This Spring has brought new meaning to the Chipmunk Varmint Wars. In honor of what may be their final days, I am reprinting an entry from 2006. Chipmunks, squirrels, baby bunnies, and all other varmints, BE.WARNED.

Last Fall I planted 80 (yes, eighty) red tulip bulbs. We have a large flower bed in front of our house and I love the first blooms of Spring. Along with those 80 red tulips I planted 80 yellow daffodils. (I bought them in bulk). It took me HOURS to plan it and then get them all planted. I am not one who enjoys sweating, so this was a true labor of love. All winter long I would smile when I thought of how beautiful my flower bed would be when the snow finally melted and they popped their little green heads out of the earth and opened up to welcome Spring. Finally, it began to happen. As I eagerly awaited the promised blooms, I began to notice something. All of the daffodils were coming up with great ease. But the tulips? They seemed to be growing smaller by the morning. Perplexed, I wondered what was going on. Morning by morning I would check their little sprouts only to find that something was gnawing them. Then one morning I found some of the bulbs dug up and carelessly thrown aside. I was p%$#@. . . well, you get the picture. How dare something steal my tulip joy!

As Spring wore on, I discovered a chipmunk living under our front stoop. Aha, I thought. This Tulip Taster must be run off. I would not let my joy be thwarted another season. I relaxed about it a bit until he started eating my petunias, and then digging up my baby hostas. Nobody messes with my petunias and walks away whole.

I was now angry enough to consider, just consider, putting out baby aspirin for him to munch on. I was told that one taste of those and he would crawl off some place to go to the great wood chip pile in the sky. But I just couldn't do it. Number 1, I couldn't bear the thought of knowing that I was poisoning a little creature my kids loved to watch. Secondly, I did not even want to imagine the stench his little rotting carcass would bring as he burrowed himself under my stoop to kick off. Then I would have to dig him out and that would only make me more aggravated.

So what to do? I began spraying Deer Off. Whew! Ever smelled the stuff? NASTY. It is loaded with coyote urine. (Rabbit Trail: So how does one collect coyote urine anyway? Do the coyotes walk around with catheters all day? What a sad way to live your short coyote life!) It worked until the next rain. Not that much of a problem as dry as it has been lately, but still, a bit of a pain. I was talking to my neighbor and he immediately went inside and got me his chipmunk trap. My husband laughed at me when I brought it home last Sunday. Ribbed me for a good 15 minutes.

He laughs no more.

After setting the thing only TWICE, I caught myself a chipmunk. HA! Take that ya varmint!

Now that I have caught him, what the heck am I going to do with him?

Oy. I hadn't thought this through completely, now had I?

So off to the park I drive, praying the entire way that he would not stink up my car or get out of the trap and attack me. I make it to the park and take the trap out of the car and set it on an incline to get him in one area. I find myself a big stick because I am NOT about to touch it. Take a deep breath. Exhale and breath again just one more time for good measure. Go over again in my mind what I will do if the thing should come out, attack and bite me (Which would include A LOT of running around, screaming and batting the poor thing before I punt him into the woods). At this point I tell myself to just hurry up and let him go before I pass out. One more big breath and I push the lever.

That thing ran so fast into the bushes I don't think his paws touched the ground but once. I knew squirrels could fly, but I didn't think chipmunks could.

At that moment, I felt even more empowered than the first time I fixed the vacuum cleaner. Tonight I stand before you:

Shaduka, Empress of the Chipmunk Hunters!

Yours, giddy over the slightest accomplishment, (especially as my husband is eating crow tonight),

Melissa