Mutant Ninja Squirrel

In the sci-fi show The 100, the last humans live in space waiting for Earth to become habitable after a huge nuclear fallout.  They send 100 teens down to find out if it is.  When they get to Earth, the kids see a two-headed deer.

I watched a couple of episodes of this, but it didn't stick.

The idea of mutant animals has apparently caught on around here though, because we think we have one living in our yard.

We named him The Mutant Ninja Squirrel and honestly, none of us care for him much.

So let me give you fair warning how you can avoid inviting your own mutant squirrel into your life.  Take caution from our misguided tale:

One snowy spring day I felt sorry for this poor, thin squirrel who obviously couldn't get to his stash of food in our yard, seeing as it was covered by many inches of snow.  In an uncharacteristically charitable act, I tossed out a handful of sunflower seeds onto our deck.  Bill watched with me as he devoured them frantically and said something like, "Poor thing.  Let's give him another."  And in an action I still rue to this day, we did.

He ate every speck.  Getting bolder and bolder to get the ones closest to our sliding glass door as we all watched this little nature video playing out live.

But when he was closest to our door, he turned his head and we all saw this disgusting talon sticking out of the side of his face.  And some weird black stuff hanging off his neck.  It was weird and gross, but I tried to tame my otherwise dramatic revulsion for the sake of my kiddo who was equal parts interested and disgusted.

"Don't worry," Bill assured me when I expressed my distaste for Mutant Squirrel getting chummy on our deck.  "Squirrels have terrible memories.  He'll forget all about us."

We went out of town.  It crossed my mind that our absence would help the squirrel forget all about us.

Days after we got back, Landon began shouting, "Mom!  He's back! Mutant Ninja Squirrel is back!"
And so he was.  Peering into our house like a rodent reincarnation of Oliver Twist.
He seriously creeped me out. He was inches from the glass, paws up, brown eyes entreating us for food.  And ever with that odd and unnatural talon sticking out of his face.

Doesn't nature have ways of dealing with this?  Survival of the fittest or something?

Oh, that's right.  I disrupted the natural order of things by feeding a wild animal as though it were a pet.

Lesson learned.

In the meantime, we've all grown rather boisterous about reminding each other to Close the glass door! Because the very last sequel I want for this little story is the one where Mutant Ninja Squirrel runs into the house looking for more treats.

My only hope is that if even one blog reader can avoid a similar woe, it will all be worth it.