For Mature Readers Only

Let me just say that when I moved to this neighborhood I was fortunate enough to live in an area with some wonderful people. To say they are great neighbors really isn't true, they are great people that happen to be neighbors. Please understand, the Crazies are plentiful on my street as well. You know the type, you see them and quickly do an about face, head down, back into your house. All the while whispering the mantra, "Don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact...". None of it matters, these are the type of people that just follow you on into the house, grab a seat on the couch, and ask what's for dinner. Anyway, aside from those 3 or 5 special treasures, the people I share a neighborhood with are some of the best people I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

In saying that, let me just point out that everyone has their, um.....quirks. Sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre, sometimes.....scary.

Here follows our story:

One neighbor (we'll call her E) that is truly a wonderful friend and person, I just love her, recently had an unfortunate break up of her relationship. Now, believe me, at the time I thought her ex-husband to be straight stupid, E doesn't possess a single bad quality. Now, after getting to know her a little better....I find him even more stupid, perhaps fatally so.

Another neighbor who has made his way to my postings before, China, has a vendetta against the squirrels. On this street we had a few crazy squirrels as well. Some might call them friendly, but when they peer into your storm door and knock to be let in, to me that's crazy. When you bring out the broom to scoot them off the front porch and they instead help you sweep, that's crazy. China had only the best intentions in mind, to rid the neighborhood of the crazy, and potentially rabid squirrels, when he bought himself a b-b gun. He's only thinking of the children after all.

Well, one lovely spring day, China turned out to not be the best shot. Here is where the horror begins, Readers. Be warned, the following story is not for the faint of heart. China had thought he had a good clean shot on the squirrel, the squirrel disappeared and he thought that was the end of that. Until poor D discovered the squirrel under my hose reel, paralyzed on the whole lower half of her body with a large round hole on the side of her body. China's calling card.

The squirrel was in pain, but still mobile and was limping under the fence and trying to get up the tree, not able to figure out why her body wouldn't do what she wanted it to do. China was conveniently gone. I cannot handle looking at (let alone touching) dead or dying animals, not roadkill, not a little mouse, not even a whole chicken in the local grocer's meat counter. I ran to E's house. Before becoming a full time mommy, E worked for the pharmaceutical companies, we all know what that means. Well, to be honest, Readers, I really didn't fully know what that meant. So I tell E what has happened, she's appalled. She says, "Hang on, I'll be right over....I'll bring my shovel." Whaaat? I just say okay, I don't really think I want to know what she's talking about. And I was right. She spots the squirrel and announces that there is no saving the squirrel, the bullet hit the spine and she's dying. She said that she's going to have to kill it because it shouldn't have to suffer any longer. The squirrel at this point is behind my next door neighbor's garage, I go around to the side of the garage so I can't see anything because this is the part where E, kind, calm, loving mother of 2, whacks the squirrel to death with the shovel. The whacking stops, I ask E if she's okay or not, she says yes, but she just wants to make sure that the squirrel is really dead. I go to open the neighbor's back gate so that she can take it out back and I see her and think she's burying the squirrel right there instead. Nope, she's just standing up on the shovel on top of the squirrel's neck, "To make sure the spinal cord is snapped and she's completely dead.", she says. I'm about to pass out at this point, I steady myself on the gate. E then listens for breath sounds, scoops the squirrel up in the shovel and takes her out the back gate to bury her in the woods. Meanwhile, my head is between my knees and I'm biting my tongue just to stay conscious. This is some shit, I know I couldn't pull this off for the good of the squirrel or no. I'm beside myself, this is a one woman mob, this is a woman you do not f*ck with, you don't do it. She can take you out with a whack of the shovel and then bury you with it. At this point, I realize I would not want to be China. Further, I wonder what her ex-husband was thinking, he definitely f*cked with her. Perhaps he didn't know the extent of her knowledge of the snapping of the spinal cord.

At the time of this writing both China and EX are alive and well. They learned a little something that week, don't mess with the One Woman Mob. China apologized for the terror caused the squirrel and distress caused to E, and packed away the b-b gun. EX has taken up ass-kissing.