Nature vs. Boehmcke

Nature is trying to kill me.

Well not nature per say, but the animals from nature. The wild beasts that roam the urban jungle that is New York City. They may be tiny, and really dirty, but they are also deadly-ish. Just go with me on this one. I will prove to you, how these creatures are after me.

Incident #1: The Squirrel Assassin

My bedroom has 2 windows next to each other. In one window is my air conditioner, a big honking piece of metal that sits half in my room, and half outside. For the first 6 months that it was in there I had high blood pressure worrying that it would fall out and drop 7 stories to smash on the ground. But so far, so good. The window next to the one with the air conditioner is unobstructed except for a child safety gate bolted over the outside of the window.

I do not have a child, but it was there when I moved in. And since I am lazy, and sometimes get out of bed in my sleep, I thought it best to leave it there just in case.

If you look closely at it you can see it really is just like a small metal ladder.

I woke up recently to the sound of a tree scratching against my window. Since it had been quite windy recently I figured the tree was just swaying wildly and therefore bumping against my window. It kept rattling my window so I opened my eyes to see.

And do I see a tree? No. Not four feet from my bed, I see a squirrel on the safety gate, tiny appendages spread wide, with his feet on the bottom rung, and his paws on the top, SHAKING it.

I don't speak squirrel but I'm pretty sure he was also saying:

Open this thing you bastard. I'm here to kill you.

This tiny grey sonofabitch didn't even flinch when I walked over and tried to shoo him away. Perhaps it was the fact that I was trying to "shoo him away" like some kind of yenta. He just clung there, steely eyed and fearless.

Incident #2: The Bird Stakeout

Two days after I rid myself of my assassin. I woke up to a scratching sound.

Fully expecting to see the squirrel again I opened my eyes quickly but saw nothing. It was really quite sad at the relief I felt that it wasn’t another squirrel. The scratching I was hearing this time was probably actually a tree.

But after another 10 minutes of scratching I realized it didn’t have the rhythmic scratching that a tree branch blowing in the wind might. So I stood up and pulled open the shade over my air conditioner. And there I saw a brazen pigeon perched on the outside of my air conditioner.

I don’t speak pigeon but I’m pretty sure he was saying:

Hello Richard. Today, I kill you.

He had scratched a considerable amount of paint off the surface of my air conditioner and had created the beginnings of a nest right up against the window. That winged rat was building a bunker and trying to dig his way into my apartment Alcatraz style.

I banged on the window but the Jurassic germ carrier hung out. He and the squirrel had received the same training. I could intimidate neither of them.

Incident #3: Eau de Rat

At a job that I no longer work at, these ninja-like critters tried a different tactic. Calling upon a new enemy to take a new approach to ruining my life.

 

I was at said job, doing a really really extra good job (as usual) when I noticed a certain odor. As usual my mind thought it was somebody's foul lunch. But upon second appraisal this was not a scent of food.

Oh wait a minute... they are good. They were doing a sneak attack.

You see in this office we had a bit of a rodent problem, normally to be combated by sticky rat traps around the office. Well the rats got smart to this and started going through the heating and ventilation system. And this particular rat was no different.

The rat had been sneaking through the office, trying to sneak up on me when it got stuck in the heater and... well... baked.

I suggested that my coworkers pour some olive oil on the rat to help improve the smell.

They did not heed my suggestion.

The next day came, with another dead rat. These tiny bastards had discovered that the smell of their roasted rotting corpse was beyond awful, bordering on noxious.

Day 3 and a 3rd rat casserole.

Luckily I left that job before they could finish the job.

Incident #4: Leaping Squirrel

Not too long ago I was at the park getting a hamburger for lunch when I saw a squirrel climb to the top of a garbage can, and fall in.

I laughed my ass off. I couldn’t stop giggling about it. Serves him right, I thought.

I ran over to see what happened to the stupid little squirrel and when I had just about reached the trash can and was about to lean over to look in the thing leapt out of the trash like we was shot out of a circus cannon.

He popped up onto the ledge of the trashcan and scared me half to death. He perched on the edge and I’m pretty sure he said:

HaHA! I am winner!

And then he scurried away to go tell his friends what a sissy I am.

Bastard.