gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

The fur flies

You know what this is, right?

It's a squirrel catcher, of course. At least, it is to my six-year-old girl, whose current fixation is anything of the family Sciuridae. She chases them across the park, wants one as a pet (wants seven, actually) and is pretty certain she's a squirrel whisperer.

You may recall that she recently exhorted me to come to school to be on her "squirrel catching team". Well, apparently you can't catch squirrels without a squirrel catcher.

For weeks, she asked me if we could go into the basement to make a squirrel catcher. (It's with three parts delight and one part guilt that I tell you she has the same blind faith in my woodworking abilities as I had in my father - the difference being that he actually *could* make anything out of wood - furniture, canoes, secret rooms - whereas I just slap together some particle board and give it a fancy name.)

I was able to put her off for a while with lame excuses - we're out of wood, the wood store is closed, squirrels are out of season. And then one day she learned a new word, a magical word of power:

"Daddy. I have something to say. I COMMAND you to build a squirrel catcher. That means you have to do it."

Well, how do you argue with that? So I grabbed some particle board and a jig saw, and slapped this monstrosity together - a cartoon mouse-hole screwed to an antiquish Canada Dry box.

Apparently I got it right. I told her we'd go squirrel catching on the weekend, but she'd had enough of my excuses. The next day she told (commanded, probably) her babysitter to bring it to school with her so she could catch squirrels at recess.
So, she lugged the contraption to school and made her ed assistant put it out in by the baseball diamond - and she even found some peanuts to put inside. (Peanuts are of course verboten in all parts of North America that may come into contact with anyone under the age of 20, but these rules are flouted by the crazy old guy that feeds the urban fauna in the schoolyard after hours.)

She didn't catch any squirrels - but she did trap one of the teachers.

My daughter eventually tired of the way the squirrels loudly ignored the box, and she wandered away after them. But then the gym teacher brought her class to the diamond, and stopped short of the mysterious, abandoned box... stared at it, and concluded it must be...

A suspicious package.

She whipped out her cell phone and called the office, who called the custodian, who considered calling the bomb squad.

And then the poor ed assistant figured out what all the hubbub was, and owned up to the squirrel catcher.

The troops stood down, relaying the message that it "was just the ed assistant's squirrel catcher." That's now probably on her permanent record somewhere, and I fear for the next time she tries to cross the border.

I invited her to keep the squirrel catcher, but she declined. Let me know if you want it.