Expert, Schmexpert

I've been writing this column for about 18 months now and when you do something that long, people think you're an expert. A couple weeks ago I got a message from a Suite 101 editor, asking what to do about the squirrels at her house. They weren't digging up her bulbs or teasing her dogs; they were throwing acorns at her. My first reaction was to ask what she had done to them, but then I realized that I was talking about wildlife, not small children, although it's easy to confuse the two. Neither of them cleans up after themselves and they make a ton of noise. The advantage with kids is that you can write them off on your taxes, although I've never heard of anyone having to go to a parent/teacher conference about squirrels.

I didn't think a whole lot about the attack squirrels until my brother in law told me that some squirrels had been chucking walnuts at him. Now, the editor lives in Florida and my brother in law lives in Illinois and I doubt seriously these were coordinated events. Then it hit me like a ton of pecans - these are Homeland Defense Squirrels! Local and national law enforcement officials are busy dealing with assorted suspicious looking characters and weird mail these days, right? They can't deal with assorted smaller crimes like parking in the Stork Parking spaces at the mall when you don't have little kids. HD Squirrels to the rescue!

Let's say you're a real menace to society - you just stole a car or even worse, went through the Express Checkout lane at the grocery store with more than 12 items. You're on the lookout for the police, the FBI or maybe even Martha Stewart. You wouldn't expect anything from those cute, furry little critters who are scampering through your yard collecting nuts. You go outside to get the paper to see if you're still on the Most Wanted list and WHAMMO, you get a walnut upside your head. Suddenly there are squirrels everywhere, heaving nuts like Brett Favre on a busy Sunday afternoon. Your last memory before you pass out is a big squirrel standing over you shouting, "Book 'em Dano!"

Squirrels are the ultimate undercover agents; they can go just about everywhere. Think you'll ever see Sipowitz from "NYPD Blue" crawling on a phone wire? I don't think so. Squirrels fall into three basic categories - brown, black and gray. Otherwise they look pretty much the same. You can't tell who's a mild mannered woodland creature and who's Rocky The Flying Squirrel with a badge. They climb trees easily and can stake out a house for days, provided that a nut tree is somewhere in the vicinity ("Keep your eyes on the house Murray. I'm going to make a filbert run.") Forget trying to make a break for it - they can chase down a perp like nobody's business. Anybody who's seen a squirrel outrun a dog knows that.

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