You say "toe-may-toe," I say "Die, little fucker!"

Three summers ago, my mom was being driven bat-shit crazy because squirrels were getting in her garden and eating her tomatos. She had tried everything, cat hair around the plants, a BB gun, even poisoning the little fuckers. Nothing worked. She'd be out there working in the garden and muttering to herself about getting the furry little varmits. It was obvious: Mere was turning into Carl Spackler from 'Caddyshack.' When I'd stop by and find her outside, I'd holler out the patio door, "What's going on Carl?" I know we were only teasing her, but just to be safe, my sister and I checked the garage for explosives. Didn't find any, but mere is a crafty one... She was determined to find a way to rid her precious garden of them once and for all. Something had to be done.

One evening, mere called and said she had the perfect plan. I asked if it entailed squirrels made from plastique. It didn't. That weekend, I went over to help. Mom's idea was to put chicken wire on the inside of the tomato cages to stop them from just slipping in between the wider openings. Pretty brilliant, my mom. So armed with gloves, chicken wire, wire cutters, and bailing wire we went to work. Did I mention that it was summer? In Kansas City? 98 degrees and humid as hell? And that mom has like 80 gazillion tomato plants? After a few hours, we finally finished and were feeling mighty proud of ourselves. We cleaned up our mess, sat on the deck to enjoy some much deserved sun tea, and gazed at our handy-work. I, for one, was glad for several things. First, we wouldn't have to commit mom to an institution; second, we didn't resort to the blowing shit up; and third, we had outsmarted the furry little fuckers.

As we were sitting there, I swear I heard the strains of "I'm all right...don't nobody worry 'bout me...why you got to give me advice...why can't you just let me be..." I looked at the garden and there was a goddamn squirrel sitting on the outside of the tomato cage eating a fucking tomato. Mom and I looked at each other with the most incredulous 'what the fuck' expressions and turned back to the garden just in time to see a chipmunk come darting out of the cage with a tomato, drop it next to the squirrel and go back for another! Fuckin' varmit got himself a mother-fucking accomplice!!! Mom and I just took our iced tea inside and didn't look back. Probably a good thing, too, I'm sure they were doing the groundhog dance and laughing at us.