Pizza Squirrel

Over July 4th I took my daughter on our annual trip to visit Sybil in New Jersey. What's the point of paying for her therapy if she has nothing to talk about. With this trip, there has been a huge influx of material for the blog. Much like cleaning out my mother's house when she kicks it, I don't know where to start.

Now that I'm thinking about trash we might as well start with the Pizza Squirrel.

Growing up, we had a very eclectic set of trash cans at Sybil's. At any given time there was a combination of the following:

• Metal Trash cans - taken from her house in the Bronx in 1972. The best way to describe them is the can Oscar the Grouch lives in.
• Lawn Can - One of those huge barrels for grass. Purchased in 1992.  Recently stolen. Sybil will not let this go.  I tried to explain that she got her money's worth.
• One Rubbermaid trash can with a mismatched lid.
• One barrel that fell off a truck, spilling chemicals everywhere. Sybil promptly grabbed it and now uses it for recyclables. Most likely radioactive.

Before the trip, Sybil informed me that some animals ate through the mismatched lid on her Rubbermaid can and were spreading trash everywhere. To combat these brazen thieves Sybil spent $24 on a new can and matching lid.

From the second I got to Sybil's, I was told over and over and over again to make sure the new can was shut tight so no animal would get in. I complied but first yelled, "Stop nagging me."

One day I went out and my phone was ringing off the hook. To no surprise it was Sybil. When I answered she immediately started screaming at me that I left the can open and animals ate through the lid. My question to her was, if I left the can open why would they need to eat through the lid? To that she responded with silence.

As I pulled up to her house I saw a squirrel running through her yard with a slice of pizza in it's tiny hands. I'm just going to assume he got it from the trash can, but then again it's Jersey so that slice could have come from anywhere.

Today I called Sybil and she said she was taking the trash out when a squirrel lunged for her. She pressed her Life Alert but they never responded! Don't you talk into it when you press the button?

"Help, help, I'm being attacked by squirrels and my sons aren't nice!"

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