Celia Rivenbark - Squirrelly behavior deters pests

Published: Sunday, December 30, 2012 at 12:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, December 28, 2012 at 12:29 p.m.

I realized that things had gone too far in my battle with the squirrels in our yard when I heard myself ask Duh Hubby to kindly step outside and pee along the front walkway where I'd just planted some spring bulbs.

"I read somewhere that squirrels hate the scent of human urine," I said.

Duh looked at me just like you'd look at a crazy person. "It's four o' clock on a Saturday afternoon," he said.

I totally didn't get where he was going with this. At first. "Oh, right," I said. "You might want to wait until it gets dark. Here. Drink some water."

It's not like I asked him to poop on them. What's the big deal? Besides, we live on a quiet street. It's unlikely more than 10 or 15 cars would even see him peeing in the front yard.

"If it's such a great idea, why don't you do it?" Duh asked when I reminded him of his task.

"That's disgusting," I said. Obviously, it would be easier for a man to handle this particular chore. Did I really need to give a grown man an anatomy lesson? I'd spent two hours planting the bulbs, carefully mixing in bone meal for heartier growth. The least he could do was pee on 'em. But Duh refused to budge. I couldn't imagine why he was being so prissy. This was no time for "shy bladder." By the time night fell, those squirrels (whom I imagined watching me all afternoon and laughing their haunches off) would ruin my garden-to-be.

I just knew it.

Duh said we should put hot pepper sauce on the ground around the bulbs but we decided against that after a Google search said the squirrels could rub it in their eyes and blind themselves. I mean we might pee in our yard but we're not complete jerks.

Other suggestions via Google included my all-time least favorite: Put up a squirrel feeder. This was clearly written by an idiot. The idea isn't to make my yard some kind of squirrel spa; the idea is to get them to leave my stuff alone. We have two huge pecan trees in our back yard but no pecans because the squirrels eat them all. They spend afternoons patting their enormous bellies, burping and flipping us off with their tiny squirrel fingers. Yes. They do.

We spent so long researching squirrel deterrents that we realized it was really late and just went to bed. The next morning, I went out to get the paper, which the squirrels had probably already read, and that's when I saw it: All 150 bulbs, tenderly planted and fertilized, had been dug up and chewed to bits.

Duh walked out to survey the carnage. "WHY DIDN'T YOU PEE IN THE YARD LIKE I TOLD YOU TO?" I shrieked.

The new neighbors, strolling their baby, sped up.

Celia Rivenbark's seventh book, "Rude Bitches Make Me Tired," will be out in 2013.


▲ Return to Top