Hey, Officer! How Much Wood Could I Ch-- Hey, What's THAT?

This is a woodchuck, although for most of his adventure wandering our neighborhood today, we thought he was a gopher, or perhaps a groundhog announcing six more weeks of chilly spring. We found him outside after Ripley spent 15 minutes pacing back and forth between the door and the window and basically driving us insane with the incessant tick-tick-tick of her nails against the wood floor. When Jenn looked outside to see what was getting under Ripley's skin, she found Mr. Woodchuck, walking slowly in circles around our side yard and under our cars. We think he was limping, but it's hard to tell with legs that small. He certainly wasn't right.

We sent Ripley down to the basement so she couldn't escape into the street and get into a possibly dangerous tussle, and Jenn called the cops to report the varmint. By the time she went back outside, a few other folks were keeping watch on the possibly-rabid woodchuck. My next-door neighbor, Mike, was watching the action from his front porch with a beer and his young son, clearly finding this more interesting than, say, Red Sox-Orioles. "Not since Jimmy Carter met with Hamas has a weasel gotten this much attention," I told him. I got a rim shot for my trouble. A few minutes later, we both had our cameras out.

The officer pulled up some 15 minutes after we called, which was certainly an improvement over the time, about seven years ago, we called around midnight to report an almost-certainly-rabid coyote in the woods behind our house. That officer didn't arrive for about 45 minutes, because some driver sideswiped him on the way over. Today's patrolman, thankfully dent-free, located the woodchuck, but stayed in his car for a minute or two.

"Probably calling animal control," someone said. "He doesn't want to touch him." Then he got out of the car and started behind the hedges where the rodent had made itself comfortable, partially blocking our view. "He's getting close. Is he going to grab him by himself?" I asked. "I don't know," someone said. "I thought animal contr--"

BLAM.

One shot. That's it. It was like the least successful Wonder Pets mission ever:

"A baby woodchuck..."
"...walking in circles..."
"This is sewi--"
BLAM!
(Long pause)
"Um, Linny, do we still get our celery?"

There was no warning from the cop, not even to ask Mike if he'd like to bring his kid inside first. However, the officer did, after the summary execution, ask Mike if he had a garbage bag. As it turns out, he had one. A shovel, too. And now, a lovely present for the trash collectors tomorrow.

I walked back in the house, where Maverick stood at the front door and promptly threw up at my feet. Probably the gunfire. Ripley got paroled, and they both went out into the fenced backyard to chase squirrels and wonder why only people in uniform get to go after the really big prey.

Later, Manny and Lowell went back-to-back, I started some laundry and did some blogging, and our neighborhood was back to normal. That's good -- the woodchuck was probably in pain, and you just don't want senseless animals wandering in circles for no apparent reason.

Which brings me to my Mom's pomeranian, Miki.

Comments

[Zena]

You write very well.